"La Gripe"

 

The Flu Virus

Luckily for me, Mari Carmen is a fully trained pharmacist and, as soon as I got home feeling and looking quite ill, I was bombarded with questions about my symptoms and various concoctions were served up to me, to fight a bout of the flu. "La Gripe", so I was informed, had been sweeping across Spain. Not normally being struck down with illness at home, I was glad to be in safe hands, especially since I have since noticed that the European Health Insurance Card, which I had with me, expired in 2011, shortly after I came back from Madrid.

Pharmaceuticals

At breakfast the next day, after a pretty bad night's sleep, I could hardly eat a thing, and it was obvious to me that I wasn't going to go anywhere that day. Given the change in my itinerary, I wanted to make the most of my last two days in Murcia and I had planned to visit both La Unión and Cartagena by bus.

Instead, I stayed at home with Mari Carmen, catching up with work on my computer, talking all of the time and learning all about the soup that she had prepared for me. After a few hours rest, I still didn't feel like doing much but I had already made a commitment to give a presentation and help out - as a native English speaker - at the Thursday night meeting of the Language Workshop...