Color me covered

I am now a proud, card-carrying recipient of Sanitas health insurance. I can travel to Italy, step on a barnacle, and get stitches in my foot for free; I can walk into a clinic in Torre del Mar and receive free lab tests and physical therapy; I can even have my remains transferred from my place of death without undue cost to my family. I cannot get a free prosthesis, but I can ask Sanitas to foot the bill for my hotel stay should I need to care for a loved one being hospitalized away from home. I even got a little booklet with all the names of all the doctors and all the various medical specialities in Andalucía for which I'm eligible with my shiny new card.

I wasn't supposed to get my card today because I'd planned to head east to Nerja to finish a hike Katharina had half-completed over the weekend (we got a little lost, then we stumbled into a cave, then we ate some lunch, then we got found, then it started to rain, etc.), but when I woke up to a rain-filled window, health coverage seemed like a decent trade off. So around late morning I trudged down the street wearing jeans that were a couple inches too long for sidewalks full of water, and flip-flops too slippery for sidewalks full of water, toward the bus station. By the time we rolled into Málaga, I was mostly just damp, but that changed as soon as I left the bus station and started walking through more watery streets and sidewalks. I found my way to the Junta de Andalucía building, and then preceded to visit nearly every floor as I searched for someone who knew where I was supposed to go. Spaniards seem to have this infuriating habit of giving you fake instructions if they don't know the answer to your question, and then get defensive if you start to get a little irritated. In the end, though, I found the little office that had a little package with my name on it--the very last one at the bottom of an impressive pile--just before the looming siesta hour. By the time I left, it was pouring, and my flip-flops kept flicking water droplets all over the backs of my pant legs as I walked back to the station. This time, though, I knew that I'd be covered if I came down with pneumonia after slogging through cold, wet streets in flip flops all day.

In other news, tomorrow I'm headed to Córdoba!