a note from newark, new jersey

ciao ragazzi,
well, i'm in transit again. the man who checked me in this morning at DFW said he used to be a musician but he just got tired of living out of a suitcase. but "oh, the music," he said with a wistful look in his eye. "oh, the music was fun."

and those are my sentiments exactly. i can't say i'm enjoying lugging around these massively heavy bags while i'm here on a layover, but i will say that oh, the music was such fun, and for now i think my back will hold up long enough for me to run around the globe playing my songs.

my last experience at this airport was less than ideal - see my first blog entry for a recap of the disaster that was my last trip to italy. today, however, has been sunny skies and friendly faces everywhere i look. there were about 20 people on my flight here (read: 3 seats to myself, which is good, since i went to bed at 5:20 this morning and woke up at 6:30, mainly because i didn't start packing until about 2 in the morning). once i got here to newark, i encountered super-friendly TSA agents, a singing customer service man (he answered people's questions in opera) and a man who worked for Continental who carried my guitar halfway through the airport and offered to change my ticket from London directly to Milan (which I would have taken gladly, could I have). And so now I'm here, twiddling my thumbs until the next flight to London (please, let me have 3 seats again). In London I'll be on the ground for way too long - 6 hours - then a flight to Pisa - then 3 hours of train rides to home. Whew. It's going to be a long couple of days.

As opposed to these last few weeks, which absolutely flew by. The band and I had so much fun on this tour, due in large part to so many of you who came out to our shows and cheered us on. My drummer said yesterday, "and what will I do without fajitas?" which to me translates as a successful trip. Target got Lord only knows how much business from my band - I took them on the first day and I'm sure we went back no fewer than 10 times in the three weeks they were here. The Target billboard "slurp for less" became a staple of our conversation (who knows why), along with the now infamous "enjoy your cows," as provided by the Chick-fil-a worker in Lufkin, Texas who said as much with a smile as she handed us our stuffed cows with our value meals.

And the shows were fantastic. Thank you to everyone who came out. We had great crowds in some of the places we least expected, and we played some amazing venues with wonderful owners, like Revolutions in Bryan and Ole Moulton Bank in Moulton. Thanks to everyone who bought the new CD - please let me know how you are enjoying it! You can post a review on the guestbook of my site, if you like, or on my CD Baby page. There are also some entertaining articles to be found online in the Bryan/College Station Eagle and the A&M paper, the Battalion.

Okay, that's all for now - my time here is almost up - another plane awaits - and please let the movie be decent...

More to come from Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy.
a presto,
Vanessa

to buy Thin Thread:
http://www.cdbaby.com/vanessapeters2
or email me directly at info@vanessapeters.com and you can pay by credit card (through Paypal) or by check.