Days 4 (continued), 5, and 6
Our days in Maribor
December 30, 31, 2005 and January 1, 2006

Ski and Snow Stories, Maribor, SLO

SKIING MARIBOR: THE BIG SLIDE
By Patti

The cornfields of Moline, Illinois will never be the same now that Don Olson, the “old man of the tour”, has taken the big slide.  Don, grandfather of Mikayla from OVA 16’s, hasn’t skied in twenty-two years. He is reportedly in his early 60’s with a couple of bad knees. That didn’t stop him.  He suited up, headed for the bunny slope, and got his ski legs back on.  Within three runs he was shushing down intermediate runs like Bode Miller.  Everything was going well until Don encountered “the big mogul”.  Hitting it full speed he took three feet of air, landed on his back, and slid half the length of the run.  Screaming, “Oh sh…..”, he was cheered on by the Slovenians on the chair lift.  Don proudly got to his feet, strapped on his skis, and said, “wait till the farmers in Moline hear about this.!”

I have never skied before. I was born in Florida and raised in the south so this is all new to me.  I put on so many pieces of clothing that I thought I would just bump off anything.  I had to be taught how to strap on my boots and put on my skis.  It is difficult at first.  I went up on the gondola with Mariah, Lana, Chelsea and Alexia.  It was fun, but looking down was pretty scary.  Watching all the skiers and snowboarders I thought to myself, “I wonder if I can do this”.  We got to the top where we sledded the night before and we all put on our skis and took off.  Patiently we all waited and helped each other.  We all finally got the hang of it.   I have found a new sport!  I just love skiing.  Well after getting really “good” we decided to brave more slopes and runs.  This led us to the “HILL OF DOOM”, Lana and I got separated from Chelsea and Alexia and we came to the toughest slope. It was so steep and icy.  I was nervous.  We started to go down, knowing we had to get down.  Finally after wiping out 1000 times, our Slovenian friends Nejc and Nika helped us off and to the ski lift.  I am proud of myself and Lana - but from now on I will stick to the easy slopes at the top of the Pohorje. 

I have never skied before, but Meghan Sherman convinced me that I absolutely had to. I was really nervous at first.  When I went down the bunny hill for the first time I totally wiped out and the guy that ran the lift thing had to come help me up.  My next time down I made it past my first wipe out, but not far and the guy came to my rescue again. The third run, I made it all the way past the bunny hill and I looked at the man as I was flying down and he waved his arms in the air and cheered for me! I then proceeded to wipe out at the very next hill.  I finally got to where I could make it down to the first ski lift, however, I could never make it all the way down without wiping out at the very bottom.  I’m sure people started to recognize me as “Wipe Out Girl” because so many people had to hand me my poles or help me up or get my skis back on. I’m having so much fun though and hopefully I’ll learn to stop without wiping out.

I was sledding down the hill while knocking over a few people screaming the whole way down. I couldn’t stop my sled and was heading towards a pack of fellow sledders. I tried to warn the group of people but instead it was like the parting of the Red Sea. The group of people just split into two leaving their sleds right in my path. I took a few sleds with me, and ended up flying face first into the snow in front of everyone. Maybe I should learn to stop my sled.

Sarah Bangley and I were on our way up on the gondola to go sledding. We were so scared because we were up so high. When we got up there we were so excited. We got our sleds and headed to the slopes. We hopped on our sleds, lifted up our legs and started going. We thought everything was fine till I looked back and saw that Sarah practically flipped her sled and wiped out. I could not stop myself and noticed I was on my way toward a fence, not only a fence but a fence that had two people standing in front of it. I couldn’t stop and so I screamed but they didn’t hear me. I slammed right into them and their sled and took them right into the fence with me. I looked at them and noticed that they didn’t speak any English and tried my best to tell them sorry and they just laughed. I finally got up and grabbed my sled and went looking for Sarah. Then I looked up at the slope and saw Sarah walking down with snow in her mouth and all on her clothes she looked like a snowman in disguise. Well I guess next time we will get lessons before ever trying anything new.

After a long bus ride, everyone went sledding on our first day in Maribor. The first time we went down everyone stayed together because no one knew what they were doing. By the second time everyone had gotten the hang of it and were flying down the mountain, except Brianna, Taylor and I. At first I was going by myself, but then Taylor asked if Brianna could ride with me so she could go faster. Since I could not get the hang of it, it would be better to go in a pair. Taylor started speeding up a little and then Brianna and I started speeding up also. We were going so fast that we past Kirstin and Marion (who actually had just fallen). We got really far ahead of Kirstin and Marion and the lights on the slope ended. We kept going and it didn’t occur to us that no one was in front of us and that the lights were out. We came around a corner and ended up on the hardest ski slope, a black diamond. This is when we knew something was wrong.  We were feeling distressed so we decided to walk to the nearest warming house.  When we arrived there Taylor was crying, and as I was comforting her, Brianna went up to 3 Slovenian men for help.  They asked us ‘where we were sleeping’ and we told them the Arena.  It just so happened that those Slovenian men were also going to our hotel.  The men said they would help us down the mountain to get back to our hotel.  On the way down the mountain Taylor accidentally let go of her sled and one of the Slovenian men tumbled down the mountain after it. The mountain became so steep, Brianna, Taylor, and I had to be resourceful and slide on our butts.  The Slovenian man started to franticly yell that sliding down the mountain is bad for our health.  With his advice we got up and began our trek down the face of the mountain.  When the mountain became less steep we were able to sled down the rest of the mountain.  Now that we were off the mountain we went to the gondola to try to find the rest of our group.  When we got there we recognized familiar faces.  Our group just got off the gondola and we found out that they had sent a search party out for us.  The search party was called off and we all went back to the hotel to drink hot chocolate.

After a long day of skiing, snowboarding, and relaxing, it was time for our New Years Eve dinner. The parents were upstairs feasting on Slovenian food while we were downstairs having pasta and pizza for dinner and a dance party afterwards. Later there was an after-party nearby that we all went to check out. It was okay but there weren’t really a lot of people there so we left the party and headed up the mountain to watch the fireworks. Once on the mountain, we had a crazy good time. Most of our team went to sit on a billboard to watch the fireworks while others enjoyed a “friendly” snowball fight with coaches and parents. We were all having a great time playing in the snow until Meghan Sherman got hit in the eye with a snowball. The snowball was packed so tightly that it was more like an ice ball. The fireworks were amazing and not like we are used to at home. From the mountain we could see fireworks all over the city of Maribor. Following the fireworks the players on the billboard had to jump off and then we all slid down the mountain on our butts. That was an enormous amount of fun but it was extremely cold. During the process of riding down the mountain on our butts, Taylor Martin got trampled by a drunken Slovenian sledder sliding on a plastic bag. She is all right now but her ankle was hurt for a while. Once in the hotel, the two of us and Taelor Jones realized we were starving. We had to search the hotel high and low for food because the whole hotel shuts down at like 10:00 p.m. and it was 1:30 in the morning. Taking advice from Cory, we searched for leftover food from the parents’ dining hall. We succeeded in finding Tortellini, bread, fruit, and cake. We ate and then went to bed while the Slovenians were still setting off fireworks right outside our windows.

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