We were greeted by a massive blizzard and strong winds in the first several days so we spent got to spend spend some time trudging through the snow. 
Here's the Spanish team coaches shoveling a path to get to the door of their wax trailer.
We stayed in cabins near a mall-like hotel that had everything from polka techno music and belly dancing in the main lobby to a roller coaster outside. The feel of the place was unique and random-- and I loved it! 
We had a full weekend of back-to-back pursuit style racing with a 2.5/3k prologue, a 5/10k classic and then finished off with a handicap start 10/15k skate race. The level of racing was high and you had to have your A-game together to compete at the front of the pack.
Here's Mikey Sinnott (USA) gettin er done by leading the front pack up one of the climbs on the second day of racing. 
Slovenians apparently take a lot of pride in their nordic skiing champions. Petra Majdic's face covered waterbottles and billboards in Rogla.
The woman herself with Becca Rorabaugh. Petra is still recovering from her crash at the Olympics, where I got to witness her race to a bronze medal after breaking her ribs and puncturing a lung. This woman is tough! 
In addition to getting to see new parts of the world and having a lot of fun, the European tour was very valuable and exposed us to a high level of competition, helped improve our points, and get us fired up to train in the coming year.
It was also a great opportunity to team up, work together on getting faster and bounce around ideas on how, as a country we can take skiing to the next level. 
Sylvan Ellofsen, Nicole Deyoung, Mikey Sinnott, and I doing a little sight seeing in Munich after the races were over. We also got to hang out with cast members from the "Mama Mia" musical which was a total trip!The past week I have been spending time in various homes in around Maine, thanks to OPA teammate, Sylvan's connections. A huge thanks to the Cushmans, Woods, and the Benoit-Samuelson families for taking me in and being such generous hosts. I recently made the trek up to Fort Kent where we had an beautiful morning of crust skiing. I am looking forward to the last races of the season. More to come!
Katie
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