That Time I Studied in London: Day 59

Tuesday, July 10 -

I went to the doctor to fix my ear and try out the NHS! The receptionist lady was really rude, but they always are. She took down my information and then told me to sit and wait for the doctor. The room was definitely not as nice as the offices back in the U.S. The floor was a weird blue tile, the walls were like cement, the chairs were just metal chairs, and there were no plants anywhere. I was all ready to sit and wait for like two or three hours, but 15 minutes later the nurse called me in. She asked me about my symptoms, gave me some pain medication, and sent me back out to the waiting room to wait for the doctor.

Again, I was prepared to sit and wait like two or three hours but then 15 minutes later the doctor called me in. I followed him through a maze to where his little office was (although it more resembled an empty closet). It had the same decor as the rest of the building, but it just had a normal chair in it, and not one of those weird doctor beds you always have to sit on. He looked in my ear with his little ear thingy and was like, 'Yeah, looks like you have an ear infection.' He wrote me my prescription and sent me down to the pharmacy to pick it up.

That went really fast too, and I had my medicine and was leaving the hospital only an hour after I arrived. I only had to pay 7.65 pounds (about $11) for my ear drops! I was pretty impressed by the whole thing and I felt better as soon as I used the drops.

In class later that afternoon we took a tour of the Olympic park. It was pretty cool except it started pouring down rain on us. It rains here almost every day, but I've never seen it rain that hard.