Lost in Translation: Pharmacy

Translation is a funny thing. A few days after we first arrived, I had to pick up some cough drops for Pehr so I put the phrase "I need cough drops" into the translator and wrote it down. I took it down to the front desk of our hotel to ask them if I was saying it correctly. I went to the pharmacy and asked for it in French. Mind you, I’m doing my best to fit in. So far, so good. Well, she brought me actual drops, like in a dropper - duh! (Why do we call them cough drops anyway…they’re not drops?!) Anyway, so I tried to explain to her what I needed: "like a hard candy" - at this point I had given up on trying to speak French. Lesson learned: in the future one can simply ask for the universal word for cough drop – “R-EEEE-cola”! That seems to work.