San Bernardino the Second

As luck would have it, Joel wrote to me this morning. I have known Joel since my first day in Paraguay in 2010. In 2006, he was with the same organization as me in Switzerland. It's also really funny when a Paraguayan suddenly starts speaking Swiss German.. :-D

Of course, he currently lacks practice, but he can still speak German. In the first few weeks of my exchange year, Joel was my biggest help and always my first point of contact. That's why I was even more happy to see him.

He suggested going to San Bernardino, as it allegedly has the best ice cream there. Furthermore, he wanted to show me the Anfiteatro and the esceleto(Skeleton).

On the way, we saw a cool building. It's a very old hotel, but it's now empty. It used to be the most famous and beautiful hotel in the country. Personally, it reminded me of a haunted castle at first. Joel then told me that the bankrupt owner committed suicide in the hotel and since then it has been claimed that his ghost still wanders around the hotel. What a coincidence.. :-D

The Anfiteatro and the escleto, which actually just describes a building that was never finished, are located on a hill, from where you have a perfect view of Lake Ypacaraí and the landscape. However, we had no luck. It is accessible about 360 days a year, but today, of all days, both were not open for some reason. So I tried to take some pictures from the road, even though the view was not sooooo good.

Since our originally planned trip fell through, we took the opportunity to try out the German restaurant 'Oktoberfest', since Joel was already hungry.

The bratwurst actually tasted as it should. The owner, who comes from near Lake Chiemsee, told me in Upper Bavarian dialect that the restaurant used to belong to someone from Augsburg and he had guests from Augsburg yesterday. It's a small world after all!