40% courage - by Leia

We got up at 0800, with our room flooded with sunlight. How I wish we could wake up like this every day!
We had the breakfast of the hotel - again the selection of meats and cheeses, good orange juice and bad one (orange-flavoured sugar-water) as well as fruits. We ordered cappuccino this time which was a solid choice, and also tea.

We took lift 32 and skied along that side of the mountain today. Yesterday's awful skiing was followed by more terrible skiing. Guy said my technique was fine except for excessive and gratuitous booty shaking. Our muscles were sore from yesterday's carrying things and skiing proved to be hard. We had Bombardini cocktails for lunch at Patascoss restaurant, along with way overpriced goulash soup and Guy's panini. The Bombardini was probably made of 40% courage, since afterwards I skied better and continued skiing well even after being stomped on by a snow boarder near the end of the day.

Sadly we did not manage to find the correct path to gondola 31 from which we could ski back to the hotel. We ended up at the bottom of gondola 55 with no time to try again, and had to climb up through the town to the ski bus stop, in our ski gear. We waited 20 minutes there for the bus to take us back. On our return we reserved dinner at the hotel and went to the spa. The hotel's spa is very big and luxurious, and we wanted to enjoy it without having to rush back and forth from town.

The spa today was a bit full, but we did manage to enjoy all the spa features. My new favorite is the Kneipp Path, which consisted of 4 foot pools: an ice cold one, followed by one with warm currents, followed by another cold one, etc. You walk from one foot pool to the other, experiencing the change in temperature. After getting out of the sauna there is a bowl filled with crushed ice, which periodically drops into it from the ceiling. I rubbed the ice all over myself after the hot sauna and it felt really refreshing.

We relaxed on beanbags in the quiet room while waiting for the Himalayan salt room to clear up and then sat there. It was all very relaxing. After all that we went to sit in the jacuzzi but it was also full so Guy swam a bit while I took a long shower among rocks like a mermaid.

We then went back to the room to shower and change before dinner. We were given a choice of buffet or a la carte, and we chose the buffet. The buffet hall - as expected - was full of families with screaming children literally running around. The food was ok for the most part but nothing to write home about, so we won't say more about it. The desserts were surprisingly nice: good fruit tartlets, cut fresh pineapple, more fruit, tiramisu and a "drunken" pear. This concluded dinner for us. I took 3 packets of grissini to smuggle back to the room, but he protested and only took one, saying he is not wearing the right pants for smuggling.

After dinner, we inquired at the reception about the astronomical observatory and the receptionist was very excited to tell us many things about it. Bottom line, we can only go up to see it on Friday when they have visiting astronomers here to operate and explain about it.

We then went for a night stroll in the Campo, to look for an ATM and the supermarket, and also to see where a restaurant recommended to us by a receptionist is located. Our stroll was nice and dark, the stars shine very clearly as we are far from civilization. The roads here are not convenient for walking since there is usually no sidewalk and one has no other choice than to walk on the street. Guy wore his headlamp. He was extremely fashionable and I expect headlamps to be all the rage in Milan by this spring.