January 28, 2012

This update was written on January 28, but I was not able to post from my phone.

Gallarate really has a small town feel, though it's about 50,000. I know about 3 people here, and yesterday I ran into two off them separately. Kristen and ran into our husbands at lunch, and we ran into a coworker at the grocery store that evening. Speaking of the grocery store, I have to rave about the produce here. It is SO good. Especially tomatoes. I see why Italians use them all the time. And most produce is so perfect it looks fake. They only carry what they can get pretty close by and in season, and fewer chemicals.

Today we went to IKEA again for a few more organizational and decorative things. Love it there! I hope they get one in StL by the time we get back. Tim put together a whole dresser for us tonight before dinner.

Ben has had a little cold since Wed, and I finally got it today. It is crazy to want a cold, I know, but now I can help him fight it.

They are predicting 5-8 inches of snow tonight, so we`ll see. I promise to post snow pics if it does snow. And I'll have more pics in general once we get internet here. Buonanotte!

Getting Settled

 We borrowed a crib from someone at work.  Tim did a wonderful job setting it up with no instructions!

We started Ben on real food!  He's had carrots, peas, bananas, and pumpkin.  He loved the bananas, did okay with the carrots, and still needs to warm up to the peas and pumpkin.

Kristen, the wife of our American coworker, has been very helpful.  She helped us go grocery shopping, went with us to IKEA, and showed us around the town. Kristen and Matt even took us to an agriturismo, a farm where they grow and raise all the food they cook.  We got to try horse and donkey.  Not exactly staples here, but not uncommon.  It was surprisingly good!

It is pretty cold here.  Not quite as cold as St. Louis, but we still need to bundle up. We need to find Ben cute little scarf!

 

Moving Day

 The movers came January 11th and packed all of our things to send to Italy or to storage.  We said goodbye to our house the morning of January 16th.

My parents took us to the airport.  We had the maximum amount of suitcases and most of them were at the weight limit.  We also had the cats, and the car seat, and Ben's stroller, but we finally made it on the plane.

We arrived at Malpensa Airport in Milan on the morning of the 17th.  All of our bags and cats made it safely!