The one with some family photos...

These pictures are for 

Kanakis Elias (The author of the blog I have been talking about), because he so kindly sent me a picture of his family! 

Above is my Nephew Benjamin, he is Amy's Son. This was taken at our Cabin near Mt. Hood Oregon.

This is a picture of my dad and I on a cloudy day at Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood 

This is a old picture. It was taken on May 4th 1991, My birthday. I'm the baby and my mom is holding me, my sister is the other girl and the woman standing there is my Grandma Sharon Coven.

This is my Grandfather Ted Coven and I at a pageant in 2008

This is my Grandparents Sharon and Ted at a recent family reunion. At this reunion I told the entire Coven family about my trip to Greece and the family I met there. 

The one with some old pictures from my Greece Adventure this summer...

These are some pictures of the family I met in Koufopoulo.

I am posting these for Elias, the author of the blog I mentioned a few posts back. 

In the first picture the woman I am with is Ageliki Tzavella. She is my Grandfathers, sisters, daughter. 

She is also featured on Elias's most recent post. 

see the post here: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=el&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fkoufopoulo.blogspot.com%2F2011%2F02%2Fblog-post.html

Note: The translation is not perfect, I can tell from my little amount of known greek that not all of the conjugations are picked up on by the translator. 

The one with an unexpected connection...

This past week I was on my blogger "dashboard" just cruising around, when I found a section that tells me where people are accessing my blog from. Mostly people click on my link via facebook, but there were multiple views from another blog which I had never seen before.

This blog was titled "koufopoulo" for those of you who are avid blog readers of mine you will realize this name has a large significance to me. It is the name of the village in central Greece where I ventured to to find my long lost relatives. (for a more complete story see http://misscoven.blogspot.com/2010/07/one-where-i-find-where-i-came-from-and.html)

Needless to say I clicked on the link that lead to this blog. It was all in greek so naturally I google translated it. This guy who writes this blog found out about my adventure from one of my uncles whom I met in the village. I am just floored that he found out about my adventure, found my blog and didn't try and contact me! haha here is the translated link to this blog entry about me.

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=el&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fkoufopoulo.blogspot.com%2F2010%2F12%2Fblog-post_31.html

I have left comments on his most recent post and hopefully will be able to start communicating with him more regularly, possibly he will even be able to help me communicate with the family. I have had so much trouble contacting them.

I feel just so blessed right now to have been able to find this blog and this connection.

With Love,
Crista

the one with my fashion awakening...

Authors Note: This blog is not going to turn into a fashion blog, I promise. No matter how many awakenings I have the one that matters most when it comes to my everyday wear is the alarm for my 9am class. 

This is just a post musing on how my style changed this summer, and how I would like to keep evolving into a more fashion forward dresser. It was charged by a conversation I had with Justin, about how we have changed over the years of our relationship and how we haven't taken time to sit down and discuss these changes so we can get along. So I was thinking about all the ways I have changed, fashion is definitely in the equation. 

My style since freshman year of high school has been to have the cutest clothes in my closet year after year, and consequently never wear them. 

Freshman year of college was similar, but as I neared the date of my departure I saw a need to develop my style. This was for practical reasons (skirts are more breezy in hot conditions) and a desire to look more my age, and fashionable. 

This is an outfit I wore in Egypt, covering the knees was necessary, but I think I wore conservative well by tucking my t-shirt in and giving myself a waist :]

When I first put this on I was soso about the high waist... but looking back I think this is a perfect Crista-attempting-to-be-fashionable outfit!

My mew found summer love: Pencil skirts! This one was made by grandma, and I love it! I wore it so much I think I will request she make me more!

This skirt is one of those super popular jersey mini's and I was unsure if I could pull it off but I think I did okay!

I admit, this is a bad photo. None the less it was a cute outfit, the high waisted skirt is a "Paper Bag" style skirt my grandmother bought for me last year at Aritzia an amazing store in Portland. I blame the fine ladies at that store for my new found love of fashion. When warn properly this outfit was cute, but by the time this pic was taken... not so much. 

Croatia! Ah I was feeling so fashionable in this country, and this scarf I picked up in Italy definitely fit my vibe, cute and pretty!

Check out Artizia @ http://aritzia.com/

Overall, my style has become more me, and less whats on the top of the drawer. I know I over wear the white t-shirt look, but I think sometimes you gotta go with what is comfortable.

the one with the last day on the trip...

Tomorrow I am headed back to Eugene! Wow what a summer it has been, it is still so hard to comprehend how much has happened this summer. The past week has been pretty great, just traveling around spending time with my family and Justin. But, let me tell you a secret, the one thing I miss most of all is going places by myself. In the next week at home I am definitely going to just spend a day going to bookstores and coffee shops all by myself! YAY!

Well after this blog entry there will be no more exciting travels to keep up on, so it might be a little silent on here for a wile until I decided what I am going to write about. Probably books, but it will probably include a little bit of average college life. 

Loves,

Cris

the one with american history, a much newer subject than I have become accustomed to

The past two days my family and I have been touring Virginia and Washington DC. Yesterday we went to UVA, I figured I should see the school that I just finished attending. It was a really nice campus, but much different (read: less green aka worse) then the UO. I did go to Pi Phi there and that was fun, I just walked up and knocked on the front door, the house mom came and gave me a little tour. Only 18 of the 140 girls live in the house but it was pretty cute, very much like our house. Then we went to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's house. It was beautiful, and I really liked both the house and the grounds surrounding it. For lunch (at 5pm) we had taco bell! OMG I missed taco bell and its disgusting deliciousness. haha. We then drove up to DC and found our hotel. I was beat at this point, but the family wanted to go see the monuments. So we drove around DC until about midnight when we finally had dinner and came back to the hotel. 

Today we took the metro to downtown DC and spent most of the day in the American History museum. I loved it, there were so many things there and it was really nicely put together. We spent about 4 hours there finishing with a tour of Julia Child's Kitchen! Thats one thing I cant wait to get home to do, cook! As I told my grandma, I am having wisk with drawls! After that we went to the National Archives to see all the important documents in the world. :] That was cool, I think it would be so much fin to be a archivist and go through old documents! Justin then lead us with its cool phone app to a restaurant recommended to me called the Dubliner, well thank you Hanna! It was wonderful!!! I am still stuffed from my chicken pot pie that I only ate half of! Were back at our hotel now, and tomorrow were off to williamsburg, and I might even get to go shopping! Yay America!

the one at the very end...

Well it was an eventful night for my parents and justin, it looked for a while like they were not going to be there when we came into port. But it all worked out, and they were here. We are now in Virginia, we spent the whole morning up on the top deck waving franticlly to specks holding signs. It was a fun morning, now we wait for like 2 hours until its time to get off.
See you all very soon!
-Cris

the one with the sentimental musings of a SASer...

The drawers are empty
The flash cards thrown away
America is on the map… even in the close up
The last noon report is said
The deans have sang their final song

We'’ve traveled the Mediterranean, and still have trouble spelling it. We’ve met people who have changed our lives, and our perspectives are forever altered. God has blessed us with safety in our travels and we come into port in the morning.

I’ve said it before, but it really is bitter sweet. I have grown to love this ship that I once thought I would never be able to navigate. The community here is like no other, everyone, even those who you don’t have the slightest idea who they are, genuinely smile at you in passing. The staff that works day and night still go out of the way to bring you juice.

I have made one of the best friends of my life, and I am tearing up even thinking about leaving her. We have shared experiences that I will never have the opportunity to share with even my family. She was with me when I was told the family I had hoped and wished existed and dreamed of meeting was gone, and she was with me when we proved that statement false. We traveled together through every port, eating the best meals of our life together, not to mention drinking fabulous wine. We sat and talked for hours over delicious food, something I could do with no one else. We shared a cabin that is the size of some peoples closet never once arguing. We challenged each other to work harder (well more her challenging me). She sat patiently while I made 200 flashcards for one biology test. She played music through every evening, not to mention morning. We dined together at 7:30 every single morning. In return for the music she shared with me, I blessed her with night after night of star trek. I will never, ever, ever forget the memories that we shared and I will miss her so much when I go home.

Tomorrow we swipe our cards one more time, but I hope it will not be our last. Someday I will be back on Semester at Sea, maybe not until I am a professor but it will happen.

Until next time,
Cris

the one with a great movie...

today, we watched star trek and packed. Then the movie on the loop was Rudy a fantastic football movie. In the end he sacks the quarterback and its fantastic.
I was really excited when this happened and I can not wait for football season.

Cris

ps

GO DUCKS!

the one where she is done with classes...

Finally I am done with classes until the fall. I took my bio final this morning, and I don't know haw I did. Its so frustrating because yesterday I studied for this one test more than I normally study for all my finals combined. I made over 150 flash cards and studied like a maniac. Yet, I still know I got some questions wrong. Science= not my thing.

Other then studying we have just been hanging out on the ship, there is not a whole lot going on. Sabre and I tanned yesterday for a while, shes been reading a book a day. I am about halfway through her (yet to be published) book, I really like it and am excited to read the one that she already published.

Tonight is the alumni ball, I am very excited for it so I can dress up but most of my excitement stems from the prospect of good food! I am so so sick of the food on this ship, and we are running out of peanut butter so we cant even have pb&j any time of the day except breakfast.

We have just about two and a half days until virginia! I am SOOOOOOO excited!

Cris