Day 6, January 13, 2007
By Casey Bauer, Colorado State

Today we woke up around 9am and ate breakfast in the hotel, which for me consisted of some bread with Nutella, a cappucino, and some orange juice. I met up with two other girls on the tour, Ali Griffin from University of Colorado and Natalie Melcher from Sacramento State, and we took the bus to Maribor to look in the shops and go to a cafe. I bought a belt and a leather wallet.

We then drove to a town (Zrece) up in the mountains on a curvy road that made some of the girls a little sick. We stopped at a restaurant and had cappucino and hot chocolate (which is more like chocolate pudding here) and then continued up to the ski resort area of Rogla. Once we got up to where the gym was, the drive was so beautiful and worth it! The sun was setting over the top of the mountains that were topped with snow, and kids were sledding with their parents watching from the side.

Our game against the D2 team from Zrece went well. We won all five of our games with different line-ups each time.

After the game, we went outside and rode the “Alpine Slide” which is a sled/roller-coaster down the mountain! I rode with Sydney Chute from Oregon, whose throat was so sore, she had lost her voice. The whole way down I was laughing, and she was whispering, because that was as loud as she could get.

We showered, then stopped in a restaurant and had some hot wine, which they make here with cloves and lemon. It sounds weird, but it is fantastic. We continued down the mountain, got back to the hotel and prepared to go out dancing. We went to a place called Samsara which was split into a techno side and a hip-hop side. It was pretty packed and almost all the girls on the tour came. A few of the girls including myself ended up staying until 4:30am, ate a whole pizza and took a cab home. We danced the night away, and sweat like crazy.

This tour has been great for me to experience European culture, learn about the different countries’ histories, meet girls from all over the US, and also see how playing professionally here would be. I am so glad I came, and hope that it works out for me to play.