A Tale of Two Kristofers

In 1910, 26 year old Kristofer Nilsen Tvedt, a native of Bergen, left Norway and arrived in America. One hundred and two years later, his great-grandson and namesake, 21 year old Kristofer Dale Coffman (that's me), is heading the other way across the Atlantic. 

For those of you who don't know, I am travelling to Norway to attend the International Summerschool at the University of Oslo. I will be living in Oslo for six weeks and will be taking an intensive Norwegian language course. In addition to classes in Norwegian (or norsk as the Norwegians call it), this past semester, I was selected as the 2012-13 St. Olaf Rand Scholar and granted a fellowship to study liturgical changes in Norway, beginning from the time of the great emigration and so I will be conducting research for that project during my stay.

But before any of my academic endeavours can take place, my first task was to get this large pile of clothes, books, and other accoutrements, weighing sixty odd pounds,



into these three bags.

That having been completed, all that's left for me to do is to wait until tomorrow morning when I will step onto an airplane at Los Angeles International Airport and out of the country for the first time in my life.

I'd like to close this inaugural entry with a picture from this past Halloween, taken when I had no idea that Norway was in my near future. For those of you who haven't seen the movie Up (and you should, it's really quite a good one), my friends and I dressed up as the three main characters: myself as grumpy Mr. Fredricksen, my roommate Adam Berndt as Russell the boy scout and Addie Rosenwinkel as Mr. Frederickson's house. 

I add this picture simply to illustrate that what we learned in Up is true: Adventure is out there! And while I'm searching for it on an airplane and not in a floating house, tomorrow morning, I'm off to find it!