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!

Expanding my Italian vocabulary- part 1

Thanks to our new apartment, I'm learning tons of new vocabulary words. Words I probably should have known by now, but for some reason, just didn't.

For example, I knew lampada is the word for lamp.  For the new apartment, I am going to need lamps. The whole place is either without lamps or there is just a single light bulb hanging from wires on the ceiling. It took us by surprise when we looked at the first apartment in July that was that way. Vuoto (empty), really does mean empty. The kitchen is completely empty and there are no light fixtures, anywhere. This is standard practice, we learned.

So, I needed to buy lamps for the new place. The kitchen, several bedrooms and the bathroom needed overhead lamps. Not lamps, I've come to learn.  No, I needed lampada da soffitto or lampada da sospensione. Ceiling lamps or suspension lamps.  Good to know.

Chandeliers are a whole different ball game. They are lampadario.  And wall lamps or sconces are either lampada da parete or applique.

And good old table lamps are lampada da tavolo.

Light bulbs, should any of you be needing any of those, are lampadine (plural) lampadina (singular).

With new vocabulary under my belt, I was ready to tackle the task of buying new light fixtures. Here's my shopping list:
1) Kitchen - one ceiling light, one on the wall, and also some under cabinet lights.
2) Antebagno (this is a little room outside the bathroom) - one ceiling light, one wall lamp over the sink
3) Bathroom - one ceiling light, two wall lamps over the sink
4) Hallway- 2 sconces
5) Bedroom 1- one chandeleir, 2 sconces
6) Bedroom 2 - 2 sconces
7) Living room - 2 sconces
8) Bedroom 3 - one chandelier

Since the apartment is very old style Venetian and already has 2 beautiful Murano glass chandeliers in it, I headed over to Murano to do a little window shopping.  Turns out window shopping is all I could afford to do. After pricing what I need to shed some light in my new apartment, I had estimates of around 10,000 Euros.  Not exactly what my budget this year calls for.

I did however, purchase the light fixtures for the bathroom on Murano. I had been eyeing the work of a nice young man, Marco Rubelli, who has a shop on Fondamenta Daniele Manin, for awhile now, wanting one of his lamps.  I decided to go for it, and had him make a hanging lamp and 2 wall lamps for over the mirror in the bathroom.  They won't be ready until the end of September, but worth the wait, and will be just perfect in that room. I came away with the budget in tact, just a tiny little splurge.

I say came away, because I literally left Murano knowing sadly that this year there would be no Murano chandeliers for us.

Plan B involved searching on Ebay.Italy, which paid off. I managed to find a kitchen ceiling fixture and 2 wall sconces for the hallway there. The sconces are new, but in the old Venetian style with a cloth lampshade.  Not exactly what we first envisioned for that spot, but they will do for now.

Quite accidently we located the perfect ceiling lamp for the antebagno  last weekend at the mercatino (kind of like a flea market) in Campo San Barnaba.  This one is old, a traditional old style Venetian lamp, made on Murano. It has great color, and we both fell in love with it. I bargained the girl down a little bit until we both felt we had struck a good deal. Mission accomplished.

We're nearly there on all the needed lamps, and have kept in the budget. Not easy for this place. Now all I need is to call the electrician!!

Next up- new vocabulary in the kitchen, thanks to our trips to Ikea to furnish our now  kitchen vuoto.

Note:  Thanks to my dear friend Caterina for the spelling corrections!!!  I will be diligent in checking my Italian dictionary before the next vocabulary post!