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Published: January 21st 2008
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This morning dawned way too early again, but with ski departure of nine thirty planned (for the others, not me, don’t get your hopes up!), we needed an early start. First, we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, thanks to one latecomer, and then the skiers were off. My dad and I packed up some of our things in anticipation of tomorrow’s departure, and then rested downstairs, reading and napping. We were to meet the skiers at one-thirty for lunch at Furcia Pass, a point along the mountain that turned out to be much higher than I initially believed. The restaurant was
Gran Foda, so we got directions from Joanna's brother, Giulio, and set off. We initially got a little bit lost, thanks to the terrible GPS system in the car, which constantly wants us to make unnecessary u-turns and drive right off of mountains where no roads exist. But we finally began the steep climb up the mountain. And by steep, I mean STEEP.
For those of you who may not know me, I’m terrified of heights, totally petrified. Many people think it’s something I can conquer mentally, but what I’ve tried to explain to them is that intellectually, I understand that
the fear is often misguided and not real. But my body doesn’t understand that, and I have no control over the way I feel when I'm up high. Flying and planes don’t bother me (at least not the big ones), but driving along a steep mountain road, which is narrow enough to require you to pull onto a non-existent shoulder of snow that just about keeps you from tipping over the edge when another car comes along, is truly terrifying. The further along we went up to Furcia Pass, the more difficulty I had breathing and I actually had to grip the car's seat and bite my lip just to keep from screaming. As we reached Furcia Pass and neared the end of the trip, I realized that Gran Foda was high atop the mountain, and to reach it, we had to drive up a ridiculously steep, snow and ice-covered driveway/road. I really thought it was the end, but we managed to make it, parking on a steep slope so that I had to hold onto the car until I could slowly make my way over to the restaurant. It was the most fear I'd had in a long time.
The skiers were a little bit late getting there, and of course, they wanted to eat outside, right next to the railing. I pointed out that I would be sitting at a separate table, closer to the building, so they moved for my sake. We then moved again to sit on the other deck (of course, closer to the edge), but sitting by the wall made me feel a little more secure and I was eventually able to relax, at which point I realized that tensing my muscles in the car had hurt my back!
For lunch, I had some pasta with tomato and meat sauce, which was very good, and served to us by a rather crazy looking waitress with bright red hair, who had shaved off her eyebrows and drawn them back on with black eyeliner. As our French lawyer said “That is not very attractive.” But she was nice, if not a little forgetful (she brought me eggs, bacon and hash browns instead of pasta - very different things.
Lunch was good, but the view was intimidating and we couldn’t believe that our lawyers were skiing from such heights. We could see a point
in the slopes where plastic fencing had been erected to stop skiers from sliding right off the cliff. Unnerving. I also didn’t like the chair lifts next to the gondolas - no thank you. Our British lawyer pointed out that perhaps skiing isn’t really in my future, and I admitted that although I would like to try it again, it's obviously that I will reach a point, rather quickly, when I won't be able to progress any further because of my heights issues. So we shall see what happens when I head to Lake Placid in March!
Although I enjoyed the meal, I did spend lunch worried about driving back down. Fortunately, our Czech lawyer was returning with us, so she distracted me with stories of her bad luck with her new car. It was enough to keep me pretty calm as we descended the mountain, and I didn't have to hold on to my seat so tightly.
The afternoon was spent relaxing at La Bercia, catching up with different people as they returned from skiing. After a leisurely shower, I got ready to head out with everyone for dinner. We went to
Fana Ladina, right in town near
to the Church. We spotted our table for eight as soon as we walked in the door and learned that our waitress was to be Alma, one of the owners. Luckily, she had a great sense of humor, because we have a tough group, always giving our waitresses a hard time, especially if they're attractive!
Our host translated the menu items as Alma described them. All of the starters sounded delicious, so we opted to try all of them. We started with a type of fried pasta disks, containing ricotta with either spinach or sauerkraut. Everyone enjoyed them, but agreed that the spinach ones were better. Then, we tried the "Crafun," which are salty donuts filled with “ragu” or meat sauce. These were also great, and were followed by "canci" or raviolis with either spinach and ricotta or potato. These are a local specialty and are "dressed" with either poppy seeds or grated parmesan cheese - with the poppy seeds, they were incredibly delicious!
By the time we finished with the starters, the lawyers had already gone through two bottles of wine, so they were feeling pretty good. It was time to choose our main course, and most
everyone agreed to have another local specialty, the roast shin of a pig with vegetables. Shockingly, I didn’t opt for that, but instead had deer (yes, seriously). Everyone agreed that the main course was delicious, and while the deer was a little dry, it was accompanied by a flavorful sauce and mashed potatoes, as well as a fancy type of tater tots. Everyone who had the pig shin greatly enjoyed it as well, so it was hard to make room for dessert, but we managed it. I had vanilla gelato drenched with chocolate sauce and whip cream (selected by our Italian lawyer, who obviously knows me well). I always enjoy gelato, but I don’t often have a real sundae - this was so worth it. The gelato was very creamy, the chocolate sauce clearly homemade and topped with fresh whip cream. Other people tried chocolate gelato, raspberries with cream, fruit soaked in rum, and lemon sorbet with vodka. We topped off our meal with espressos (of course), and everyone had a truly delightful time.
It was a really great way to end the weekend, which did make us all sad to leave. Tomorrow, we head to Munich early so
that I can catch my flight home (four hour drive, nine hour flight). I look forward to taking some pictures of the drive, which I trust will not be as tense as our drive today! Then, home!!
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