At the start of the trip we had assumed that Slovenia would be the low point of our journey… boy were we wrong. We began with practice at the gym, the same gym that the Maribor Professional women’s volleyball team practices and plays in. We were the second set of USA teams to play on the courts (the first was the Girls Global Challenge 2006). The gym was awesome, almost as a large as any professional arena.



During the first practice we got to meet the Slovenia Youth National Team,



and the United Arab Emirates (UAE),



both teams were very nice and excited to meet us. Every team ended up staying at the same hotel, The Prymida, about a mile from the gym, so we managed to get a lot of walking in. If it wasn’t for the Slovenian team, our trip would not have been the same. After dinner our team was hanging out in the lobby and a few of the Slovenia guys came down and we instantly connected. We talked for a few hours and called it a night. The next day was the start of the tourney; every team was excited to play. After a long day of winning and losing we decided to treat ourselves to a night on the town. We met up with a member of the Slovenian team, Domen Kos number 6, who showed us around and introduced us to everyone in the town. We were treated like VIP, getting free admission to clubs and actually getting clubs opened specifically for us. We started to wonder who this kid was, maybe he was a celebrity? We came to a simple conclusion… every person in Slovenia is just extremely friendly. We met up with the entire Slovenia Team and chatted the night away. We can honestly say that the trip would not have been the same if we had not met Domen and his team of SLO’s. He treated us like kings and we will never forget him.



Domen in blue on left

The tournament itself was really fun. Playing teams such as Slovenia and UAE was an unforgettable experience. Both teams had their own signature style of play. UAE was small but they could jump out of the gym and although they were skinny most of them could smash. The Slovenia guys could jump fairly high as well but they had the height. The players were all either 17 or 18 years old but they were huge. It came down to UAE vs Slovenia in the finals and Slovenia took home the “W.”

While one court went long our coaches, Sean and Bryan got into a pick-up match with the UAE Sheik sponsor and some of their players, Bryan got his first International win against Sean and part of the UAE team.

Bryan on the left side of the net, with the Sheik and 2 UAE players, Sean on the right.

Our team in front of a monument dedicated to World War Two. Vinag Winery is behind us and to the right.

The town of Maribor was very unique. With many old buildings, along with new structures, and a massive church with bells that you could hear ring for miles.

We visited the oldest grapevine that has a respectable place in the Guiness Book of World Records standing at over 400 years old. The vine is gorgeous, growing on the side of a building bordering the river, it truly is a sight to see.



We also tried the grapes from the vine, they weren’t that great as you can see from Jason’s reaction



Not far from the grapevine was a winery called Vinag where Tom and Donna took the team on a winery tour to let us experience new culture and learn some history. This winery was started in the 1840s and is right in down town Maribor with its cellars stretching under the streets and other newer buildings. If we hadn’t gone on the tour we would never have known it was there. They have a vault area for saving a selection of the very best wines from each harvest, prior to 1941-1945, it held wines from the very beginning of the winery but was raided by the German war machine and now holds only wines from 1946 to present.



This place was very cool, it was all underground and had barrels that were centuries old. We had a cute little tour guide named Danjela who showed us around and filled our heads with some knowledge on wine.



 She was pretty excited to be taking a lot of pictures with us. This winery was photography heaven,

Right Side Reilly Keenan was the only player with any experience with wine, and helped us understand what we were looking at. Here is the largest of their new stainless steel barrels as compared to there barrel from 1890 pictured below or some of the wooden casks from 1862 that we saw.

Now the food just keeps getting better and better. We mentioned earlier how we love the
Gelato (ice cream)now called Sloudnic in Slovenian, well we managed to become good pals with a guy who runs a Sloudnic stand so he has been hooking us up a good deal. Everyone on the team has also become obsessed with Kebabs. These are meat sandwiches with different sauces and lettuce. You can almost compare them to a Philly cheese-steak but only better. The only bad thing about these Kebab shops is that they don’t cater to our late night cravings, it’s a big disappointment.

Last but not least, a topic that we cannot steer clear from…women. Slovenia has more beautiful women than any of us could imagine. You could not walk 10 steps without having love at first sight. There was one amazing beauty who swept our entire team off our feet, her name was Ada… we will never forget her.

We cannot not wait to see what else our European adventure has lined up for us. Austria is next on the map, so we are preparing ourselves for what’s in store. We just hope that we will be able to meet some locals like we recently had done in Italy and Slovenia to help show us the ropes.