Nordic CruiseCruise

To escape a grey February in London, I booked myself onto a cruise around Norway’s islands to explore more of Scandinavia, but things escalated when I met Robin.

Coincidentally just minutes before I met him, a robin landed on my shoulder. I was nursing a steaming cup of coffee in my hands and watching the sunrise. It was this gorgeous blend of pink and yellow, the shades bleeding into one another like watercolours, and the cold wind bit my cheeks when it blew in from the ocean. It was a beautiful morning, and as the sun came up, the surrounding mountains slipped out of their silhouettes to fill with pinky-yellow projections.

At 8 AM, most people were still in bed, and for good reason – the temperature was well below freezing. A morning jogger ran around the deck, his feet clapping the ground, and an elderly couple at the bow of the ship ducked their heads to watch something in the water. That’s when I saw it – a humpback whale spraying water and twirling mid air. It landed back into the water with a crash.

It was the first time I saw one.

The robin landed on my left shoulder shortly after, folding up its tiny wings as it came to land. It was a small thing with an orange breast, the same bright colour as the horizon, and I followed its journey with my eyes when it took off to retreat back into the ocean.

“Terrific morning, isn’t it?” A man appeared on my left shoulder and joined me at the railing. “We don’t get this in Dublin.”

He was pale-skinned and peppered around his nose was a constellation of freckles. His hair, light brown, blew in all directions in the wind, exposing one of his red ears. The tip of his nose was the same, and his lips too. They were hued red from the cold, and when he licked his lips – probably to generate some feeling back into them – my first thought was how kissable they were.