I went to the doctor today. My left ear had been bothering me - things sounded muffled and it felt heavy inside. It had happened before in Davis and they just flushed out with a fire hose and it was just ear wax related. So I made an appointment with the non-english speaking receptionist to see the english speaking doctor. I arrived at his office and was buzzed into the building. The office was amazing. It was the smallest, dimmest, most home-like office I've ever seen in my life. The ceiling had hand hewed beams and the electric wiring was obviously and afterthought. The doctor had to keep coming out from the exam room to buzz patients in. No receptionist, but a nice piano in the waiting room. The "doctor" I saw had only limited english, which made me suspicious since Dr. Wilson was supposed to be attached to the Hospital at Hertford or Hereford or something like that. The "doctor" agreed with my notion of wax and then hunted around for a syringe to wash it out. He said that he'd only been there for a few weeks and didn't know where things were and would I mind terribly if I ran out to the pharmacy just down the street and bought one and returned? Well I did (.45 euros for a 5 cc syringe in France in case you are wondering), but when I returned I had to start waiting all over again and while I was waiting the real Dr. Wilson came in. He was dressed in street clothes, just like the other doctor, which was different from doctors in the US. Everything was very casual - Dr. Wilson took me into a back back room which was their storage room with a washing machine so the other doctor could see someone in the exam room. He fixed my ear, but we first had to wait for the patient to leave and then we had to dance around each other in order to get enough room to get out of the storage room. 35 euros cash for 2 hours of his time and I was gone. If I was French I wouldn't have had to pay for the syringe (which was never used and I'll keep as a souveneir) or the appointment. One of my students had a cast on her foot removed at a French hospital and when the nurse started making noises about payment the doctor quieted her saying that the patient was a student and therefore they wouldn't charge her. Same thing with museums, people on unemployment don't have to pay admission, which is genius. Hmm, government supported medicine and culture. Nice idea.