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!

My new best friend

I bet you thought I was going to tell you all about a new shopkeeper or barista who  befriended me this week.  I wish!  I made a promise to myself that I would push myself harder to improve my Italian this year, and in doing so, I've been working on developing some new daily habits.  One to two hours a day I am pouring over my Italian workbooks, listening to audiotapes and recording myself. I'm also reading a book in Italian!  I chose an old favorite of mine- Nancy Drew's Mystery of the Broken Locket!  Don't laugh, I realize this  book is geared towards 10-12 yrs old, but it's right up my alley.

According to some Italian proficiency tests I took recently, I'm at an intermediate level. Still, I find myself horribly deficient. The Nancy Drew book is forcing me to really work at it. I've been making some good progress, although a bit slower than I would have liked.  My process is pretty simple- I attempt to make out the text on my own with the hopes of being able to read and understand as much as I possibly can. Then,  I break out i Ragazzini, my trusty Italian-English dictionary,  and start looking up the words I don't know. Then, I take a tea break!  I have two new notebooks- one for nouns, prepositions, adverbs etc, and another for verbs. Anything that is new to me I am writing down in my notebooks, along with examples of how the words are used. I don't know if you can tell from the photo, but i Ragazzini is about 4 1/2 inches thick.  I'm not only getting a mental work out, but  my arms are also benefitting from all the lifting.

At the rate I am going, I expect to be finished with Nancy Drew in about a month.  I thought I had a pretty extensive vocabulary already, however, to be honest, I think my new notebooks will be full up before the book is finished.  The system seems to be working for me- except for bumping into some verb tenses I'm unfamiliar with.  Passato remoto for one. I'm still struggling over the use of Passato prossimo and Imperfetto!  You know that saying "You can't teach an old dog new tricks"?  Well, folks- Karen is an old dog. Trying to learn new verb tenses is just not easy.  However, determination and hard work will see me through this. I am committed to becoming more proficient.  Notice I was careful not to say fluent?

Now, the only other thing I need this week is a few words with the Patron saint of learning Italian!

Postscript added Friday morning- I know this is going to sound weird, but it's true. Last night in a dream, the identification of the Patron saint of Learning Italian was revealed to me.  Its Spiro Agnew!  I woke up shortly after that tidbit of information was divulged in the dream, so I unfortunately was unable to get back to the dream to find out if there was anything else to it.  When I told this to Mike this morning, he commented that this was surely a sign  I am supposed to turn Republican.  Sorry, but I don't agree.

Oh boy,another go round with Vodafone

I thought I'd start this blog off with a happy photo, cause my day yesterday wasn't all that great. Enjoy one of my favorite views in Venice of the Rialto bridge on a recent afternoon.

Yesterday, I had to deal with Vodafone - again.  I avoid this like the plague. Vodafone is the company we have our mobile phone and internet service with.  When we originally set up our account with them, we went to the store at the foot of the Rialto instead of the one closest to our apartment, because at Rialto there were a few employees who spoke English better.  Every time we have a need to deal with our Vodafone account, the clerks who work at our local Vodafone shop refuse to help us. They always direct us back to Rialto, citing as a reason that we must go to where we set up the account. We have always thought this was nonsense, but  not knowing any better, we do what we are told.  We've learned the hard way you just don't argue with these people.

So- yesterday we discovered mid day that our phone service had been interrupted. Mid day. Great. Vodafone is closed for siesta and wouldn't be open until 3:30.  Not wanting to go back to the Rialto area a second time that day (I had been there in the morning too), I went to our local Vodafone shop at 4pm, hoping they might be able to save me a trip to Rialto. I did this, but mind you, I was expecting the worst.

I knew that to get the phone service turned back on I was going to have to make a payment at the Post Office in cash, but I needed to know how much money was needed.  All I wanted was for the woman at the local Vodafone store to look up the account and tell me the amount. I was already geared up for the long line I'd incur over at the Post Office. It was not going to be a good afternoon.  On top of that,  I already knew that she was just going to look at me and say "You need to go to the Rialto office".  Still, I slapped a smile on my face (all the while gritting my teeth at the same time), and asked the woman to please help me.

Here it comes, I thought to myself. Why didn't I just go to Rialto to begin with??  Hope against hope, I'm always the optimist. Or maybe I am a masochist and I'm fooling myself!

After making my plea for help, this woman tells me she will find out how much I owe and I can make the payment by credit card right there.  What?  Say that again, per favore?? Did I understand you correctly?
This cannot be!!!  The reason I say that is because I had already been told by Vodafone many many times that we could  never pay our account by our US bank issued credit card. Our payment had to be from an Italian bank account, or on an Italian credit card. We'd gone round and round and lost this battle with Vodafone long ago.

Again, this woman says she will do it. I hand her my phone, she calls customer support, she gets the amount owed from them, and asks me to hand over my credit card and my documentation.  In two minutes, everything is finished and my service is restored.  It turns out I probably could have done all this myself if I could have understood the Vodafone customer service voice menu system. It's impossible- the Italian recordings speak at breakneck speed. I am completely at a loss if I have to deal with any menu system here. This woman, for whatever reason, decided she would help me out, and I am grateful beyond belief. I was doing a happy dance in the Vodafone store. I don't know what this woman ate for lunch, but it made her very cooperative.  She never had been before.

I'm about to leave the store when she asks if I want to make future payments by credit card also?  What, are you kidding me???  She is volunteering to do even more for me?? Sure, that would be fabulous. She gets back on the phone with customer service, and in two more minutes has updated my account so that now all payments will be on this credit card.  I'm thinking to myself I need to go directly to the church around the corner to light candles, and do not pass Go.

After just about kissing this woman and multiple "Grazie mille's", I did immediately duck into San Pantalone, lit a candle, and said a quick prayer of thanks to God, and to the Vodafone God, and one last prayer for the health of my Vodafone woman.

Then, I made that phone call to Mike (yes, the phone was working!) and  invited him to the mini-celebration I was about to have for myself in Campo Santa Margherita. This called for a prosecco!

BTW- I did not speak one word of English during my entire time in the Vodafone store. Perhaps this woman finally took pity on me because I have been trying so hard to speak the lingo???  

Had a breakthrough this morning!!!!

So far today has been absolutely glorious, and it's taken me completely by surprise. Truth be told, I was geared up for the worst, as my first mission this morning was to go to the bank. The bank here is always my undoing. Something that you think would be so easy just isn't here, because of the language barrier.

Yes, I've been studying Italian. But as much studying as I've done still doesn't make me fluent, or even close to fluent. I understand well, also read and write fairly well, but the my own conversation is frustratingly not so hot.

So, today at the bank, I decided to speak only in Italian. Even if I had no idea what was going on, I was going to try to muddle through. The gods were smiling down on me, because the whole transaction happened smoothly, and I even got a "Buona giornata" as I was leaving.

Having had such a positive experience, combined with it being an absolutely gorgeous morning, I decided I would head to the Rialto to pick up some things for dinner. I hopped on the #1 vaporetto at Piazzale Roma, and got a seat at the front of the boat even. There is nothing better than to be going down the Grand Canal on a beautiful sunny day, on the front of a boat. Thank you, God.

At the Rialto Mercato stop, I left the vaporetto, heading first to the fish market. After taking a quick look around, I decided on some fresh tuna, at the stall of one of the fish mongers over on the side of the street, one I've shopped at before. I asked for what I wanted, and we even had a little discussion on how big a piece I needed. He sliced off a piece, showed me, weighed it, and then told me what the bill was. I decided I also wanted some shrimp. At the end he even did a little math for me adding the two together to get a new total, all in Italian!

Next stop was the vegetable stall next door. I asked for mixed greens, cucumber, tomatoes, zuccini flowers, lemons and red pepper. Of course, they do this one item at a time when you are shopping at the outdoor market. After each item, the vendor will ask "Dopo?", meaning, what do you want next. As I was finishing up, the woman behind the vegetables asked me where I was from. I decided to continue my conversation in my halting, embarrassing Italian, I explained I was American,and now Italian, living here in Venice. She smiled and told me to come back often, so we could practice speaking more! Made my day!