On any given trip, chances are good that I will need to visit a pharmacy. I’ll fall down and skin my knee, develop a sinus infection, or need a throat lozenge, and, even though I should have known better (really, I should have), I will have left my bandages, medicine, and/or cough drops at home.

Visiting a pharmacy can be a non-event in areas frequented by tourists. There, the pharmacists are used to interacting with English speakers and their various maladies.

For example, it was no problem when I was struck with a sinus headache near the Rialto Bridge in Venice, Italy and discovered that my purse contained acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and a whole host of vitamins but nothing for my sinuses. I simply walked into a nearby pharmacy and trotted out my best attempt at explaining my ailment in Italian: “il mal di testa … but sinus.” The pharmacist immediately produced some pseudoephedrine and explained the dosage to me in English.

It’s not always such a cakewalk. In fact, it’s usually anything but. My embarrassingly limited Spanish permits me to introduce myself and order various menu items, but it was no help when I needed sinus medication in Antigua, Guatemala. I moaned “dolor de cabeza” to the pharmacist while pointing at my eyes, nose, and temples and miming a vise-like grip on my head. The pharmacist nodded and said something in Spanish that sounded like assent, and I was pleased with my cobbled attempt at communication… until the pharmacist handed me a bottle of eye drops. Defeated by my sinus headache and abysmal language skills, I turned to my Spanish-speaking travel companion to translate.

Armed with a phrasebook, I can usually at least get my basic ailment across to the pharmacist. This wasn’t the case in Xi’an, China, where I was searching for a bandage after tripping over some sharp rocks. I found a store selling various medicines, but could see no bandages. I flipped to the appropriate page in my phrasebook and did my best to sound out the Mandarin word for “bandage,” but the pharmacist only tilted her head at me, looking perplexed. I tried once more, with no more success, before leaning over the counter to point to the word in the phrasebook. The pharmacist erupted in laughter at my shoddy pronunciation and called another pharmacy employee from the back to share in the joke. Once she had finished laughing, she produced a large gauze bandage.

With a bit more effort, I found the word for “adhesive” and walked out with a box of Band-Aids, the bemused pharmacist waving merrily at us as we left.

Despite traveling in Paris with two phrasebooks and my mother, who speaks French moderately well, I found it no easier to obtain a bandage in Paris than in Xi’an. To be fair, I also wanted antibiotic ointment (this foot wound being more serious than the one in China) and the phrasebooks were silent on this point. We tried to explain what we needed to a chic employee in a posh pharmacy, to little avail, until I sucked up my pride and slipped off my shoe to expose the fairly ghastly wound. Within five minutes, we were walking out with a fancy bandage and antibiotic ointment combination.

Perhaps someday I’ll learn to pack a first aid kit comprehensive enough to address my most common ailments. While that may be beneficial to my overall wellbeing, when and if that day comes, I’ll miss my interactions with foreign pharmacists and learning (or trying to learn) how to say “sinus headache” and “adhesive bandage” in various languages.