Visiting the doctor

So I had the very interesting experience of going to the doctor in Chile because I had bronchitis (this doctor's visit was over a week ago and I am fine now). First I entered the office, and was told to go down the hall. I walked down a long hall and came to another reception. At which point they told me to go to the NEXT reception. So I went still further down the hall to a room where there were about five different desks each with a lady working on a computer. This did not look like a reception area to me, but the only area past that was the information desk and that did not look right either. So I stopped at one of the five desks, and it turned out that was what I was supposed to do.

After I paid (in Chile you pay for doctor's visits with checks), the lady in the reception escorted me to the doctor's office. This doctor's office was rather different from those in the United States because it actually WAS this doctor's office where he works all day. There was no nurse to take my blood pressure first and ask questions. I only talked to the doctor, which was nice because it meant I didn't have to repeat myself. The doctor was a very jolly fellow, and asked questions about what I was doing in Chile because I was very clearly foreign. When I told him my age, he said something to the effect that I was still a kid. Thanks to having taken chem and bio classes, I was familiar enough with Celsius to know that the temperature reading he measured was a fever (37.7). I think that was the first time I've had my temperature measured with an armpit thermometer.

The doctor prescribed that I take antibiotics and an expectorant (medicine that makes you cough). The expectorant, Abrilar, is made from English ivy. It actually has a decent herb/honeyish taste, but the first couple nights when I took it were miserable because I couldn't stop coughing.