No, not the San Bernardino in Southern California (sorry). Over the long Thanksgiving weekend, Brandon, Bailey and I joined with some friends from school to drive out to "the lake" for holiday, as Glen would put it (he's English, you'll have to forgive him for that).
The adventure of it all began weeks before as we started thinking about what to do over the break. It was a back-and-forth "are we going?" "are we not?" up until the day we left. A Paraguayan family that we were planning on going with decided they weren't going to go after all. Or maybe they would. They'd let us know. If they went, we could crash at their family house; if they didn't we'd need to find a hotel. Either way, we'd need to rent a car (and try out Brandon's Paraguayan driver's licence for the first time), but if friends from the apartments came, too, we'd need a bigger, SUV type car as opposed to a small four-door something.
And all this was up-in-the-air on Thursday, the day before we wanted to leave.
So Brandon and I did something we've never done before. We left home without a plan.
Friday morning I walked to the bank to grab some cash and then headed to the grocery store to pick up snacks. Once I was home, Bailey took her nap while Brandon rented a car and I packed our bags. Packed for what? I dunno?! Who's coming with? *shrug*
Turns out our ACA apartment friends came along and we did indeed end up out at the lake. We took a huge "detour" (a.k.a. got lost) trying to get out of the city due to some ill-marked, name changing roads, but we made it. Eventually. But not without paying off a cop who picked Brandon (and the rental car) out from a crowd of cars, claiming that we ran a red light. How we ran the light without the handfull of cars behind us also running the red light is beyond me, but our Spanish isn't fluent enough to argue with a cop.
We stopped at the first hotel we spotted and checked right in, just in time for another nap (for Bailey and Brandon) and some pool time for the rest of us.
Once the sleepy heads were awake, Brandon took Bailey exploring the grounds of the hotel, which boasted two pools, a playground area, trampoline, volleyball pit, and even a token tucan in the midst of the garden-like patios.
We weren't far from a German village, so we headed down to the lake itself, hoping to snag some quality German food for dinner. But the restaurant is only open on weekends (and Friday's don't count) so we opted for the French food instead.
Bailey was a trooper, sleeping in our room (but in her playpen, not our bed) and woke up as cheerful as ever. Trouble was, there were bugs in our friend's beds, so we decided to check out and wing-in once again.
Before check-out time, though, Bailey braved the pool and loved every minute of it. She was timid at first, but then threw herself in - literally. She was so excited about being in the water (and naturally rather independent) that she wasn't thrilled about Mommy or Daddy having to hold her all the time in the water. She wanted to do it herself.
Once we found our new hotel for night #2, we headed back to the German restaurant, which, ironically, didn't serve German food. The menu was stocked with typical Paraguayan food and Brandon's heart about broke. He's been craving German schnitzel and potato pancakes ever since missing Oktoberfest. Bailey didn't seem to mind, though, as she polished off her very own bowl of raviois while the rest of us filled up on milanesa sandwiches, fries, apple pie and ice cream.
Back at the new hotel, we (again) took to the water and Bailey squealed with delight all afternoon.
That evening, we found another German restaurant (but again, no German food). It was a beautiful location and the parking lot was a grass field that the "kids" got to play on while we waited for our meals to arrive.
After a long weekend of eating, napping, and swimming, we were ready to go home. Another detour later (a bike race through the city that closed off the streets we needed to access to get home), we made it home and geared up for another week.
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