Happy Birthday, Enrique!!

This week I had my first visit to a Spanish hospital. Luckily it was for a happy reason – my cousin-in-law had her baby!! Health care for the expat is a tricky thing – you never know quite what to expect and you usually only finally get to experience it at the worst possible moment. I continue to be amazed at private Spanish doctors’ offices. Don’t expect a clinical setting! It’s not uncommon to visit your doctor in a residential building and in an office that feels an awfully lot like an apartment. En cambio, the public Spanish hospital felt reassuringly like a private American hospital. And that should really come as no surprise considering the Spanish health system is top 10 in the world (check out the WHO's ranking and keep scrolling if you want to find the USA). Gotta love it when you can actually see your taxes at work. (Not that I'm actually paying taxes yet. Our appointment at the immigration office today served only to inform us that I shouldn't bother watching the mailbox for at least another 3 months!)