Chapter 9: ¡Salud!

“I miss Greg,” said the ancient woman with a walker, gazing towards me but not particularly focusing on me, and I knew exactly of whom she spoke. We were standing in a long line at a Duane Reade pharmacy counter in Greenwich Village, and it was barely moving. Greg was the former pharmacist at that location who was always efficient, kind, and attentive. I missed him, too, and I wondered what my medical care would be like in Spain.

In a pre-COVID-19 world, people often debated why the life expectancy in Spain was among the highest in the world — 39 spots ahead of the States, according to the United Nations. Was it the so-called Mediterranean diet or the single-payer healthcare system . . . or both? The “right to health protection” is enshrined in the Spanish Constitution, and the government intelligently husbands its resources. In order to obtain our long-term visas, Kate and I had to present proof that we had paid for a full year of private health insurance up-front.

When we moved to Madrid, one of my first tasks was to visit a pharmacy — one of the few permissible reasons people are allowed to leave their homes in Spain during the confinimento y encerrada. Brightly marked by large emerald green neon crosses, one already senses from two blocks away that visiting a pharmacy in Spain will be a different experience than going to a Duane Reade or CVS in New York.

As in most American cities, pharmacies are ubiquitous in Madrid, but they are much smaller and often located in the middle of a nondescript block. Upon entering, you will not find Cadbury eggs, Scrubbing Bubbles, or WD-40. More old-fashioned chemist than present-day drug store, the employees wear immaculate white lab coats and conduct themselves more like nurse-practitioners or physician assistants than store clerks.

They also seem to have university degrees in patience.

On my first trip, I was looking for a liquid multivitamin with iron. I bungled the word for iron — blurting out “con ferro,” my brain’s bizarre conjuring up of the periodic table’s abbreviation (Fe). The woman at the counter looked at me blankly, but kindly. I then tried the pathetic “iron,” only pronouncing it “earROAN,” as if that would help. And because her English was better than my Spanish, she replied, “ah, hierro.” This was someone going the extra mile. She vanished into the back for a few minutes and came out with a made-in-Germany concoction in an old-fashioned brown glass bottle. I felt well taken care of.

The following week, emboldened by all this kindness and a little concerned that my prescription meds would run out before it was prudent to go to a doctor, I decided to venture out again. This time, I scribbled the key Spanish words down in the little notebook I keep in my pocket. I would explain that I had a prescription from my doctor in the States. Could my doctor fax it or email it to the pharmacy? I brought the plastic bottle too, which clearly stated “3 refills.”

When I arrived at the pharmacy, the pharmacist came to the protective banker’s window, took one look at my bottle, nodded, and went into the magic area at the rear of the store. Out she came with a box of the medicine. No prescription or proof of health insurance necessary, and the price was only 10€. I wondered if this was expediency under the present health crisis or whether no prescription for my medication would ever be required. I didn’t ask, and I practically skipped home.

Being me, as soon as I set my bag down in the apartment, I took to the Internet, searching Spanish health care and prescription medications. While some in the United States claim the European regulatory state is too burdensome, here was an example of market efficiency. In Spain, one does not need a prescription for many medications that require one in the States. Even birth control pills are over-the-counter. Whether that has contributed to the low European birth rate is a topic for another day. And while I have been coy about the name of my medication, I can divulge that it was definitely not The Pill.

©2020 Kay Diaz

Chapter 8: Happy as a Pig in . . . .

“I can only eat so much jamón,” is a refrain Kate and I have often heard over the years from friends in the States when sharing stories of travel in Spain.

Yet our recent announcement that we would actually be relocating to Spain frequently prompted the enthusiastic refrain: “You are going to eat so well!” I was unsure of how to respond. How could I possibly eat better than I did in New York City where I had the ridiculous good fortune to live near Union Square Park, home to a farmers market with one of the greatest arrays of fresh food anywhere in the world?

Further dialogue with these enthusiasts would reveal that they were thinking of the famous Spanish restaurants and tapas bars — eating well meant eating out. But this presented a second conversational dilemma: My wife is a professional chef, so every day of eating in is eating out. There is really no way to convey this politely. Proper manners and social graces are all about making one’s interlocutor feel good, not envious. Efforts that result in humblebragging are not solutions to the problem.

But what makes me reticent in certain situations — I never realized how often food comes up in casual conversation until I married a chef — makes me one of the luckiest people on the planet during a lockdown.

With few exceptions, Spain’s State of Alarm permits us to leave our apartment only alone — no couples allowed. In the past week, Kate has darted out twice to the food markets, purchasing a cornucopia of fruits and vegetables, including several heads of lettuce ranging in color from green to purple, flat beans, carrots, asparagus, red bell peppers, cucumbers, garlic, onions, strawberries, bananas, apples, pears, grapes, dates, and avocados (grand total: 29 €).

Yesterday, though, we did eat pork. We are living in Spain, after all. These were the most tender pork chops either of us had ever eaten, and Kate paired them with daintily-sliced and sautéed onions and pears, and perfectly cooked asparagus. The accompanying salad comprised not just lettuce, but toasted almonds, Spanish sheep cheese, and chopped dates. It was as delicious as any comparable restaurant meal, and we gave thanks for Spain’s foraging pigs and the farmers who raise them.

But for those people still concerned that we may be forced to live on pork alone, I can report that none of our many recent purchases of kitchen equipment (see Chapter 7) have included a carving stand resembling a medieval torture device for a pig’s foreleg. Not that we didn’t discuss it.

©2020 Kay Diaz

Chapter 7: Love in the Time of Coronavirus . . . or, The Wedding Registry We Never Had

We settled quickly into our new apartment in a 150-year-old atrium building, located in the Malasaña neighborhood within the original ninth century borders of Centro Madrid. Malasaña is known as a lively neighborhood filled with hipsters, but the COVID-19 lockdown rendered it silent.

In the nineteenth century, Spain was ravaged by the world’s cholera epidemics; over 230,000 Spaniards perished during 1854–55 alone. By the time Spanish physician Jaime Ferrán developed a vaccine in 1885, millions more had died worldwide. I suspect that the courtyard in our new residence was required by public health reforms of that era mandating light and air.

We face an unexpected challenge when learning to write out our new home address. We must label our apartment as “2° Dcha Ext” — second floor, right, exterior. However, after attempting to unlock the wrong door, we discover that our apartment is only on the right side if we take the stairs; when we take the elevator, our apartment is on the left.

Before we left New York, we looked into the cost of shipping our belongings to Spain. It was prohibitively expensive: over $4,000 for a small number of boxes. In a state of sticker shock, we packed only clothes, cameras, and computers, deciding that we would purchase everything else we’d need from Madrid’s welcoming storefronts once we arrived. Of course, we made that decision in a pre-COVID-19 world. Now, with the once-busy shops shuttered, we would have to rely on e-commerce.

The largest department store in Spain, El Corte Inglés, is located not far from our apartment, and it delivers. We quell our objections to online shopping, and console ourselves with the knowledge that our purchases will help support local employees who may otherwise be out of work.

When Kate and I met and married in our forties, we already had everything we needed. As such, the invitations to our wedding included a request that, in lieu of gifts to us, our guests make donations to named advocacy groups. A wedding registry was the furthest thing from our minds.

Fast-forward 11 years. Kate and I spend our first afternoon in our new home sitting side-by-side on the couch shopping on our laptops for all of the items newlyweds long for. One of us looks up translations while the other searches the Corte Inglés website: “Home and Decoration,” “Kitchenware,” “Home textiles,” “Tableware,” and “Spaces” (whatever that means). In no time, we had selected 47 items that we absolutely, positively needed to function in our new apartment — lockdown or no lockdown. Sheets, towels, a cotton quilt, a stove-top espresso maker, a pan, pots, plates, glasses, and eating utensils. Since it would now be a long time before any of our friends or family would be able to visit us, we opted to purchase only two coffee cups.

We marveled at our level of cooperation, congratulating ourselves on the speed with which we could agree on design, composition, and color — with some discussion, but no acrimony. There was a reason we got married those 11 years ago! We proceeded to the checkout screen with all the items we had amassed, pleased with the reasonableness of the price for so much loot. We pressed “submit,” with happy expectancy. In came the error message: “You have exceeded the limit of five items.” Even in e-commerce, European restraint was apparent. As to the 42 other items we had selected, we had not saved any of our search results. We had to start over. We were starting over.

©2020 Kay Diaz