June 30

We had a free morning so we all slept in, had a leisurely breakfast, and walked to the Jardin de Los Pajaros (garden of the birds). It had birds and flora from all over Argentina (and other parts of the world). It was finally sunny today, so the walk in the park was quite pleasant. It was a bit cool today, as well. With the smell of wood burning stoves in the air, it reminded me of a beautiful fall day in Minnesota. After the bird garden we walked back to the hotel, met with Pastors Clovis and Mariella and their kids, Ingrid and Augusto, and went to lunch. Ellie and Ingrid have become pretty good friends and will hopefully continue their friendship via some sort of social media. The afternoon plan was for our group to meet with some of the parishioners from Oleus Petri and brainstorm ideas of how we can continue and foster the relationship between Bethlehem and Oleus Petri. While the adults talked, the kids went to the park and played games. Our evening activity was going to a plant that processed mate tea. We had a tour of the plant and saw how mate goes from a leaf on a tree to the actual tea. After the tour we were treated to some sweets and mate con leche (with milk). On our way back to the hotel, Luke, Nathan, Sara (our wonderful interpretor), and Hector ( Oleus Petri parishioner and our driver) stopped by the Club Athletico Obera futbol stadium. Hector is the president of the club and he gave us a short tour of the stadium. He also gave me a CAO jersey. It the grand futbol tradition I gave him my Minnesota United FC t-shirt in return. A late night BBQ for dinner and we called it a night. We leave tomorrow morning for Iguazu Falls. We are going to miss our new friends in Obera, but I have a feeling we will be back to see them again in the near future.