Vaccinations in France

Today, the 2nd, it's back to business as usual in France (where as in Japan, usually businesses started getting started on about the 4th or so), and I took advantage of the New Year's break to get some vaccination work done at the public health center near Guillotiere station, where I used to get off to go to the Alliance Francaise for language study.

There, I went in and had my information put into the computer, manually (suprising that all these different branches of the health department and the housing department don't communicate with each other), then I went to wait in another room for the doctor to call me.

Actually the woman who welcomed me into her room for the vaccination might have been the doctor, but the person who actually administered the vaccination was a Vietnamese guy who spoke French with an accent I could barely understand. He told me to lift up my shirt sleeve so he could inject the vaccines, that much I understood.

In a few minutes it was all over and I'll have to come back in a month to have it done. It didn't hurt so much then but now, more than 12 hours later, it feels like the sort of muscle pain you get from throwing a baseball too many times in one day. Tightness and stiffness. But nothing that I can't put up with.

Explanation of Photo: Red card is an immunization card (not a real card, just a photocopy. Inside, under the category tetanus/diptheria/polio they stick the seal from the immunization shot to the card, and the doctor signs it.