A trip to the pharmacy

I occasionally get headaches, so I like to have some ibuprofen around. I forgot to bring some from the US, so I went out today to get some. Since such things cannot be purchased in grocery stores in Denmark, I went to an apotek.

At the apotek, it took some time to find the ibuprofen, but eventually I did, behind a locked glass door on a cabinet. It was clear that to get help one needed to take a number, but what appeared to be the number-producing machine had two buttons on it with descriptions that I couldn't figure out without a dictionary. So, I did what I've gotten in the habit of doing and asked a friendly-looking person if he spoke English, and after confirming that he did (they always do, so far), asked which button to push (the second one, since I didn't have a prescription to fill).

When my number came up, I asked the pharmacist if she spoke English (she did, with hardly any accent), and asked for some ibuprofen. She told me that they are currently having a "campaign" to discourage people from using ibuprofen because it can cause stomach problems. This took several minutes. She recommended that I buy paracetamol, which doesn't cause stomach problems, which I did. I'll have to look it up, but I assume it's fine.

All in all a pleasant, but significantly more complicated experience than in the US.