Today we arrived in Maribor at the beautiful Gozdna Villa Mari Apartments. Not only are the apartments beautiful, but they are also on a mountain. After breakfast at the Dras Center this morning, we took a ski lift ride half up the mountain to a ropes course. We completed two of the many ropes course challenges available. The first obstacle was a large wooden pole with pegs in the sides. The goal was to climb the pole, stand up on top of the pole, turn around and step off the pole. It sounds rather easy until the final two pegs on the pole. Even though this event challenged our team, we completed it by supporting each other the entire time. The other obstacle was an extremely large swing. After one person is secured in the swing, the rest of the team runs out to the side of the obstacle to lift the teammate to the highest point of the ladder. Then the team member in the swing pulls a string to begin the swing off of the side of the mountain. The view was absolutely gorgeous.

After lunch at the little cottage on the mountain, we found the exciting way down the mountain. We took an alpine slide. It is a metal pole that winds down the hill with small one-person cars. Each driver can control their car to a comfortable speed for them. Since our team thoroughly enjoyed this alpine slide, we decided to go back up the mountain and go down the slide again. As our exciting morning came to a close, we walked to the Dras Center to play the Russian Junior National Team. 

- Christina Carracino

After an entire day of team bonding in Maribor, Slovenia, we headed back to our hotel to get ready for our match versus the Russian Junior National Team at the Dras Center. The first impression we got from this team was that although they were younger than us all, the Russian team was very big and tall.  The girls played very well and gave us great competition that evening for the five games we played.  Hopefully we gave them some good preparation for the European challenge tournament!

-Megan Hodges