Culture Shock #29: Germans trust the experts

When you walk into a German drug store, the first thing you'll see is a big long counter. 

The next thing you'll see is people in white lab coats (usually women, though I don't know why) behind the counter. 

The next thing you'll see is the shelves behind the women in white lab coats, stocked with all sorts of medicines, from the beloved homeopathic herbal remedies to antibiotics. 

Importantly, all of these medicines are located behind the counter behind the women in white lab coats. You cannot pluck a brand-name box of medicine from a shelf and turn it over to read the ingredients list. You cannot pluck the generic version of the same medicine off the neighboring shelf to compare the ingredients list to the brand-name version. You cannot deliberate at your own dazed leisure about what kind of medicine might relieve your cold symptoms the fastest without making you drowsy, palming bottles and boxes and syrups and tablets before deciding on the thing your mom always used to give you because at least you know what it tastes like.

If you seek medicinal relief in Germany, you must find a drug store. You must walk up to the counter. And you must speak to the women in white lab coats. 

The first time I sought medicinal relief in Germany, it was for a hangover. I was walking home, squinting at the concrete beneath my feet, full of hate at the way it reflected Saturday morning sunshine straight into my retinas. My head pulsed with need. I-bu-pro-fen, I-bu-pro-fen. 

I stumbled foggily into the first drug store I came upon, shuffling through my mental filing cabinets for the German word for what I was desperate for, only to stop dead at a big long counter. I looked around. Where were the goods available for purchase? I made eye contact with a woman in a white lab coat. She smiled at me. I slowly shifted my gaze to the colorful array of stocked-shelves behind her. My groan was involuntary and audible. I was going to have to talk to someone to get Ibuprofen. 

I still don't know how to feel about German drug stores. There's a big American part of me that doesn't trust these women in white lab coats to give me the right medicine. I want to be able to touch all of the products myself. I want to spend 45 minutes narrowing down my options, fighting with CVS free WiFi to Google differences in brands, comparing lables and prices from an endless assortment of drugs at my disposal. At least if I end up making the wrong choice, it was my choice to make. 

But there's a growing German part of me that appreciates the lack of choice in German drug stores. The humbling experience of walking up to a counter and admitting out loud what I am looking for, what is ailing me. Empty hands, cupped and pleading. The surrender to the women in white lab coats.