mercifully shorter, i promise

ciao!
LIFE IS BEAUTIFUl! i want to type in all capital letters ... but i know how annoying that can be, so i will contain myself. but i am so happy!!!

quite unexpectedly, we got to play another show! last night. the organizers of the concert called us tuesday night to see if we could play wednesday night (hey, this is italy, after all), and after manuel spent all of wednesday scrambling to get the speakers and other equipment together, we were set.

we played in piazza san francesco in arezzo, which is located in the historic center. if you've seen "life is beautiful," then you've seen where we played last night. the scene where roberto benigni is goofing off on his bicycle, trying to attract the attention of the pretty young woman in the suit was filmed there... also, part of "the english patient" was filmed in chiesa di san francesco, which is in this same piazza, directly in front of where i was playing my guitar.

it's a pretty amazing thing to be a girl from texas, standing on a stage with my italian band in the middle of a piazza that is hundreds of years old....looking up at the great black sky, the steps of the church packed with onlookers, the lights of the surrounding cafes casting shadows on the faces in the crowd. when i think back to the beginning, when i was learning to play the guitar and i was positive i would never even be able to develop callouses, much less play a song in front of my little sisters...and then i think back to last night, when i was mangling italian in the microphone, laughing with my band members as a street rose seller came onto the stage and tried to foist a flower on me in the middle of "easy"... as i think back on the smile plastered across my face, and how i could feel my heart swell with joy during the last beats of our final song...i am continually amazed by everything. i feel like the luckiest girl on the planet. i laughed when i saw a poster for 'la vita e bella' in the square...it seemed so fitting.

anyhow, heads up...we started recording our "ice cream on mondays" EP this week... :)
a presto and lots of love,
vanessa