Sick - and more German fun

So, I got the bug that's been going around; seems that everybody here is under the weather, and truthfully I haven't been sick in a while, so I was due. Anyway, as always, I can't get the last bit of sinus action to calm down, so I figured I'd get some aspirin. For anyone who needs to get aspirin in Germany, a few pointers:
1) Anything that could be called a drug (including aspirin, but not including, for example, vitamin C) can only be sold at a pharmacy in Germany. They actually have "drug stores" here, which are just like drug stores in the U.S., minus the actual drugs. If you need to pick up some deodorant and a birthday card, though, that's the place to go.
2) All drugs must be purchased via the pharmacist - everything is behind the counter. I don't really have a problem with this, except that for some reason the pharmacy was packed with sick people, and even though I'm hacking and sneezing just like everyone else, I still don't like people hacking and sneezing in close proximity to me; what if they have a different strain of the cold than I do, and we're just making each other sick?
3) Pharmacies have pretty limited opening hours, just like everything else. Apparently a couple stay open 24 hours and they have some kind of unpredictable schedule, so if you need to find out what pharmacy is open at night or on a Sunday, you need to check the paper for the announcement of what pharmacy is open at night right now. Generally, the central train station is a good bet when you need something at off hours, because it'll probably be there, or else you can try to go to the information folks and ask. If it's like 12am, though, you're SOL - try to get sick during the daytime if you can.
4) "Aspirin" is the brand name for Bayer aspirin. A small package of 20 tablets costs about5-7 Euro. What you want is "Acetylsalicylsaeure", which is the actual ingredient. Thankfully in my case, I was able to ask for "generic Aspirin" and I got what I needed, which cost about €2.50 for 30 tablets (still pricey but cheaper than the name brand)
5) For some reason aspirin comes in 500mg tablets. I was about to take 3 or 4 but checked the intertubes just to be safe first. Caveat emptor!

Moral of the story - when you visit from the U.S., bring lots of aspirin, and leave some at my place.