I flossed my teeth today.

No, really I did. Hey, I am on vacation and I do brush.

We went to Gubbio today. Built on the side of a mountain, this Etruscan, Roman and now Italian city is not the easiest to traverse down to up. This is Ann’s kind of town, though. From the lower parking area there is an ELEVATOR up to the Piazza Grande. AND there is an elevator from that piazza up to the cathedral at the very top of the city. This is a total of around the height of a 30 story building. Dear Ann was so impressed with this free mode of transportation she also rode it DOWN! That, my friends, is the definition of lazy. Her rebuttal: The elevator is there to be used and if it goes up it must go down again before it goes up so SHE might as well be in it. That is logic in its purest form. Bravo.

In Gubbio we stopped into a ceramic shop in the center of the old town. There we met Signor Piergentilie Marino, the owner and artist. He is probably in his early 70s. His shop is literally under the Piazza Grande in a room with a 30’ high vaulted ceiling built in the late 1200’s. He has owned the store since 1963. Ann saw a piece of ceramic she really liked but wanted it a little different. “Si, no problema”, said Signor Marino. He spoke not a word of English. Everything he said and had told us about his shop was in Italian. Ann was able to understand and tell him how she wished the artwork and color on the piece of ceramic altered. He would make a piece within the week and send it to us by UPS. [The package arrived about four weeks later in perfect conditon. The commissioned piece was made as Ann wished it.] Perhaps listening to all of those CDs Laurel gave us of Italian Language instruction paid off. We spent many hours listening to Italian this summer driving to and from Portland to see the brand new little Eloise.

Lesson for Day 32: If you have not flossed your teeth for 31 days it really hurts.