Santa Claus is coming to town...( by way of the Babbo Natale regatta in Venice yesterday)

How to make an ordinary day extraordinary? Take ten minutes to watch about 50 Venetians participating in one of the cities newer traditions, the annual Babbo Natale regatta.  Despite fog and spitting rain, these stalwart rowers donned their Babbo Natale (Santa Claus) outfits and raced the course between San Zaccaria and Ca'Foscari down the Grand Canal yesterday. 

I took up a post just the  San Zaccaria vaporetto stop, knowing I wouldn't be able to see any more than all the racers queuing up and taking off. It was enough to put a big smile on my face and start my day off right. 

 This rower changed up their outfit a little bit  by adding a reindeer hat (FYI- reindeer in Italian is la renna)

 The boat with the pink flag on the end is the local Pink Lioness group, an organization who row in support of Breast cancer research and cures.

  

 This is still pre-race, and although hard to distinquish in my photo, this woman is taking a last minute phone call, probably from the North Pole!

 Elves, reindeer and Santas, oh my!

The race official giving the signal to begin racing.

 While standing around waiting for the regatta to kick off, this boat was just off to my right, decorated to the hilt for Natale.

It's been a week of preparation for the holidays.  Besides getting our tree up, apartment decorated, last minute gifts purchased and meals planned, my preparations included beefing up my Italian vocabulary related to Christmas and studying about Christmas traditions in Italy.

Here's some useful Italian vocabulary, if like me, you are learning too!

Buone Feste - Happy Holidays
Buon Natale - Merry Christmas
Felice Anno Nuovo - Happy New Year
Stella di Natale - Poinsettia
Babbo Natale - Santa Claus
la renna - reindeer
la slitta - sleigh
il presepe - nativity scene
il presepe vivante - living nativity scene
il pupazzo di neve - snowman
il fiocco di neve - snowflake
il regalo - present
l'albero di Natale - Christmas tree
la vigilia di Natale - Christmas eve
luci di Natale - Christmas lights

This is, believe it or not, the top of a torte in the window of one of my favorite bakeries ( pasticceria) in Castello. Too pretty to eat!

Here's a version of the classic Christmas song, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, performed in Venetian dialect by one of my favorite local groups, Ska-J.

Buon Natale! Buone Feste!

A little adventure in Campo San Barnaba

Yesterday on my way home, I discovered a little flea market  going on in Campo San Barnaba.  There were several tables of "stuff" laid out in the square, manned by three white/grey haired Italian men, most likely Venetian, of course!  During my days in the USA, I was always drawn to antique shops and flea markets. For years I drove a Jeep SUV big enough to handle any spur-of-the-moment purchases I couldn't resist bringing home. Now that I am in Venice, carless, those spontaneous acquisitions aren't possible.  A) I don't own a car anymore, B) we live in a rented, furnished apartment, and C), even if I did find something to buy, I'd have to get it hauled home somehow.  Option C hasn't been such a big problem for me, as everything I have ever looked at in flea-market stalls in Venice has been incredibly expensive. That's Venice.

Mike has been wanting a small bookcase for the office/study/spare room.   We've looked at Ikea, but honestly Ikea is not our style of furniture. We've looked around locally, but the few things we've seen both old and new have been too expensive for what we need. Until yesterday. At this flea market, I found a nice little bookcase. Upon closer inspection, it was just the right proportions for the space we needed. In addition,  both the color of the wood and style would go perfectly.  I didn't notice any price tag, so I called over one of the little old men and asked "Quanto costo?  (how much?).  "Trenta", he says. Not believing what I heard, I asked,   "Trenta?????" (30) Oh my God, this is Venice- I was expecting three hundred euros would be the answer.   He laughs and says, in Italian, of course, "50 is good too, you want 50?"   "No, Trenta is fine", and pulled out my wallet before he changed his mind. I now owned a little bookcase.

I called Mike to come bring our little dolly and bungee cords down to the campo.   As I waited for his arrival, I had a lovely conversation in Italian with two of these guys.  We talked, as best I could in my still not fluent Italian. When Mike arrived, we loaded our new bookcase up, and began to wheel out of Campo San Barnaba. One of the little old men yelled to me, "I'll be here until Tuesday!". I might just have to return!

It's another simple pleasure day...

The day isn't over yet, but I've already experienced my simple pleasures.  Two of them. I won't be greedy and hold out for three again today. Two is just fine by me.

Simple pleasure Numero Uno:

First thing this morning I had to get up and go deal with the people at the Vodaphone store at Rialto. I dread this.  I will do everything possible to avoid dealing with them because the experience is always so horrendous.  My Italian isn't good enough to get me through the ordeal, and there isn't anyone there who speaks much English either. My solution is to avoid it. Unfortunately,  today there was no way I could get around it, so I got up my nerve and hopped on the Vaporetto, expecting the worst. Vodaphone is the company we have our cell phone and internet service contracts with.

It must be my lucky day. Upon entering the store, a clerk walking by asked me what I needed. When I told him I had to pay a bill (all in Italian), he told me not to take a number or get in a queue. Wow!!! I bucked the Vodaphone queue???  This is going to be good. He then called over another clerk and told me to go upstairs with Carlo who would help me out. I followed Carlo upstairs and proceeded to explain to him what my problem was. I normally pay directly from my bank, blah blah blah, and now I need to have my phone turned back on, please.  My whole speech was conducted in Italian. At the end of all that, I asked him if he spoke English because my Italian is not so good.  Carlo smiled and answered back, " We'll speak in Italian, you are doing just fine. My English is worse than your Italian. "  After spending about 40 minutes on the phone with some other Vodaphone support person, Carlo turned to me and explained I must to go to the post office, make a payment, then call Vodaphone and give them the code number for my payment. Even though I had made a deposit at the bank, I must pay this bill separately at the post office. Ok.   Grazie, Carlo, and off I went.

Stop number two was the post office. Mission accomplished there. Next, I needed to call Vodaphone. Now I was going to be in trouble.  Whenever I have to call any voice menu system that's in Italian, I can never understand a single thing that is being said. And because it is all automated, I can't ask anyone to please speak slower for me.  Today, I navigated the entire Vodaphone voice mail system without any assistance. Did it all myself, and bing, bang, boom, my phone has been reactivated.  I am in Seventh heaven!  Thank you, God.

Simple pleasure Numero Duo:  Earlier this afternoon, I received a the following email, subject "Big News":

Hi Karen,
 
I wanted you to be one of the first to hear that my daughter Allegra and I are now officially Italian!!!  Luigi sent me the email this morning telling me that the NY Italian consulate had sent the certificate needed!  The whole process took just a little over 2 months -- amazing!
 
Thank you again for encouraging me through the process and for writing about it in your blog.  I felt completely prepared for everything, which made the experience completely enjoyable.  In fact, a friend of mine will be coming to Castel San Pietro in October to apply for citizenship and is very excited now that he knows it can all happen very quickly.  
 
I may be flying into Venice at the end of August, so if you're in town, perhaps we can meet for a glass of wine to celebrate before I head off to Bologna.  I would love that!
 
Thanks again and a big American hug for all your help!
 
Antonia

I'm celebrating tonight for my two new fellow Italians. When Antonia was planning how to get her dual citizenship, she emailed me.  When she finally came over to Bologna to start her citizenship process with Luigi (the same immigration lawyer I had used), she stopped off in Venice where we met face to face for the first time.  I know how fantastic it feels to finally hear that it's all done, that you are finally officially Italian.  To be honest, I am so joyful to know that my experiences have encouraged others to do the same.

So - there are my two simple pleasures of the day! Life doesn't get much better, does it? .  I sure am one lucky Italian!!!

The difference between I and E

It's no secret we've been trying to learn to speak Italian, and making slow progress. I know, it doesn't seem possible that we live here, and still haven't become fluent yet. There are a few reasons for that. The biggest one is we just don't practice enough. We took several months off from our weekly lessons, and we've just started back up again in August.

On the plus side, we are making progress. Seriously. We understand just about everything we hear, even at full Italian speed. We read and write fairly well also. It's opening our mouth and speaking back in a conversation that we don't do well enough for our liking, even though we are told we do ok. Still not good enough, secondo me (in my opinion).

And every once in awhile, we have a particularly interesting language experience that illuminates to us that no matter how hard we try, we may just never become as fluent as we would like to be. Here's two recent, laughable cases-in-point:

I went to the farmacia (pharmacy) to purchase arthritis medication for my elderly dog, Sam. I'd purchased this medication at this same farmacia before several times, and each time I had taken the medicine box with me to show the pharmacist, just in case I needed it. This time, I didn't have the box. I just said her, in my excellent Italian, " Ho bisogno Rimadyl, per il cane". And I pronounced Rimadyl just like I think it should be -- RIM- A- Dill. Simple. No. The pharmacist looks at me and tells me she doesn't know what I am asking for, but would I please write it down. So I write it for her- RIMADYL. She looks at me, smiles a big smile and says, "Si, Si, Reeeam - a- deeeeal". Thank goodness for pen and paper, or my poor dog might still be without his arthritis medication today.

Only a few days after the farmacia adventure, Mike went to the vet to obtain the name of a pet sitter, as he has seen a flyer on the vets wall the last time he was there. The vet didn't personally know this particular pet sitter, but sent Mike over to the dog food store to ask the woman there, because she thought this pet sitter and the dog food woman were friends. Mike goes to the pet food store, and in Italian he asks the woman there if she can recommend this pet sitter. But he pronounces pet sitter just as we would in English. Those two words on the printed flyer were exactly as we would write them. The woman says she doesn't know what he is asking for. He writes it down for her, and she says, "Oh, si, si... Pet Seat-ter". Pet Seat-ter. Of course! Why didn't we know that???

There is no doubt in our minds, after these two events, that we have not learned the difference in the pronunciation of I and E. I need to go study a few more hours this week.