Arrivo!

We have been in Italy since, Monday, April 30, and a lot has happened since we arrived. The flights were fine, and Sebastian got to sit in the pilot's seat of the United plane we flew to New York, which he thought was exciting. I could probably write about 10 pages, but I'm going to try and keep this as brief as possible. Although, we arrived on Monday, 4 of our 5 pieces of luggage didn't arrive until Tuesday afternoon, and the 5th piece of luggage didn't arrive until Wednesday morning. That was quite stressful, but we made the best of it. We've also been having a lot of difficulties with the language barrier. Unfortunately, we don't speak any Italian yet, and most of the people we've come into contact with don't speak English. We're staying in an apartment in a suburb of Milan and have a rental car to drive to the hospital and market. I could write a few pages on the market alone. It's huge - I'm not really familiar with stores like Super Walmart, but that's what this store is like. There are still small shops around, but more and more "Big Box" stores are popping up and supposedly our giant market is a small one. From TVs on one end to clothes in the middle and groceries on the other end, and everything else in between, including motor scooters. Chris has done all of the driving so far, but I'm going to have to get behind the wheel and get comfortable driving here too. We're attaching pictures of the hospital (black building) and our apartment building (on the right). On Thursday, we took the metro to downtown Milan and walked around the city. We got to see the Duomo and the Galleria, which were both very nice. Currently, Milan is full of painted cows. The shot Sebastian receives that gives him the missing enzyme comes from cows, so we like cows! We cannot write any specifics about the research, but we have met with the doctors and we feel confident that Sebastian is in great hands here. Sebastian didn't cooperate at all when they tried to examine him today, but they said we could do it on Monday. Sebastian is acclimating well, and doesn't seem to notice that we're in a different country. He's still adjusting to the time difference (9 hours). We don't have internet access in the apartment, but our goal is to update this blog every weekend from a hotel near the hospital. Overall, we are getting settled in and we feel fortunate to be here. Please continue to keep Sebastian in your thoughts.