everyone's favorite tourist and a reading list

ciao everyone,
do a little dance, spring has arrived! i have red hair. i am not sure why - one moment i was in the drugstore with my sister, who was visiting me on vacation, and the next thing i knew i was massaging bright red mousse into my wet locks, praying it wouldn't turn out magenta. it turned out, well, red. check it out below! those of you that were fond of the blonde will be happy to note that this is a temporary condition that will pass in 8-10 shampoos.

so jess, my little sister, came to visit for spring break, and oh the fun we had. in 9 days we conquered Florence, Rome, Siena, Perugia, Cortona, Arezzo, and La Verna, not to mention my hometown of Castiglion F.no. more pictures from that trip will be coming soon but they are on jess's dinosaur 35 mm and she still has to get them developed. we laughed like hyenas for most of the trip - sisters are good for that - and we even invented an ad campaign (which sadly never came to fruition) that would have starred yours truly as "Vanessa! Everyone's Favorite Tourist!" the ad campaign idea was sparked by jess's observation of my good behavior - I was caught picking up other people's trash, always ordering in Italian, walking lost and misguided tourists to their destinations in Florence, helping a crying canadian student buy a new cell phone in Rome, and supporting the Italian economy by buying my wacky red shoes, among other things. It sort of became our obsession to see how nice we could be. In our minds, there would have been a whole series of cheesy photos with me giving a thumbs-up and a double-row-of-teeth smile to the camera while performing these girl-scoutish actions. How lovely it would have been. C'est la vie.

Books I have read recently that you should too:
High Fidelity (Hornby)
Silk (Baricco)
Fast Food Nation (Schlosser) (holy cow, you really have to read this one).

I am in the middle of three others - I will let you know how they pan out.
Pictures below! Oh, and I am going to be back in Texas and Louisiana for 3 weeks in June, and I am now taking applications for house concerts. Let me know if you want to host one...
lots of love from your favorite strawberry blonde tourist,
vanessa

my lil' sis, Jess. We are taking a walk out in the valley - far off in the distance you can see Castiglion Fiorentino. 

Oh, someone please, please buy me a Cinquecento!! 

ScacciaPensieri, Ciggiano (AR). 3/5/05. Back when I was blonde. 

check out my bad-ass shoes. yee-ah. 

this photo was taken immediately after the wacky dye job. wow. 

this is the shade of red we are currently at...quite a change from the "run lola run" that it was the first night. 

this amazing photo was taken by Juri, our bassist-turned-photographer. I am not sure how he did it - no photo-shopping was involved.... 

super bowling champion and new review

hey all!

just a little familial bragging...my little sister's bowling team is going to the State tournament...AND she was voted as "Rookie of the Year" by all of the high school coaches in her district. yee-ha! this is the same little sister with whom i had my early morning gas station adventure a few months ago...such a trooper, that one. AND my other sister arrives on Friday to spend a few days here with me in lovely Castiglion Fiorentino. double yee-ha!

new reviews and articles are up on vp.com and icom.com! this is the newest one, a lovely review of "thin thread" by amy lotsberg of collected sounds. thanks amy!

http://www.collectedsounds.com/cdreviews/thinthread.html

buona settimana!

vanessa :)