Health Care, elaborated

Emil here!

First, a health update:

As Elaine mentioned, Mallory and I both went to the"Travel Doc" and are on the road to recovery. Feel loads better already.

There are a few things to note about healthcare here:

1) You generally apply to the National Health Service for a General Practitioner, who will do just about everything for you and your family. Pediatric needs? GP. Allergist? GP. Orthopedist? GP. The backlog for specialists is over a year.

2) If you don't have a GP yet (like us) you go to a private practice. This is absurdly expensive: My 10 minutes with the doctor cost $420. Not counting the prescriptions. But it does count the prescription fee. And the look-in-my-throat fee. And the breathe-in-this-tube fee. And the listen-to-you-breathe fee. And the pay me scads of cash fee.

Sadly, I only made up the last one.

3) The receptionists were clearly a high-powered superspy team. I wish I had the foresight to take a picture, but it's probably for the best. They undoubtedly would have been forced to kill me.

There were two: a stylish young blonde girl and her counterpart, a tall lanky guy with a Ben Wallace afro and a smart black suit. I'm used to the medical staff wearing Elmo scrubs and generic reeboks. The suit probably cost more than my car. Or it would if I had a car.

4) The decor at the doctor's office was this: leather couches and chairs carefully arranged around an art-piece coffee table. The walls were adorned with quite well done pop-art and expensive looking sconce lamps. A bit of a change from the wooden bench and eight-year old copies of Field & Stream at the doctor's back home.