Making a menu bar more transparent and moving/resizing text

I’m working on https://www.randomthoughts.ie/shawati

I’ve made a few changes to the design already, but I’m having real difficult with altering the transparency of the dark grey bar that the menu sits on the left of the screen. Ideally, I’d like to make this totally (or almost totally) transparent.

Also – any suggestions on how to move the actual menu buttons themselves would be greatly appreciated.