Unexpected Connections On My Cruise to the Arctic Circle

by Caye Smith (United States of America)

I didn't expect to find Greenland

A few years ago, I had the good fortune to travel aboard a ship in the Arctic Circle with one of my best friends. The trip was meaningful in so very many ways and was a growth experience I never expected. It was a chance to reconnect with my friend in ways I couldn’t even imagine, because we had the luxury of time. Staying up late and talking well into the night in our cabin reminded me of talking well into the night with my old college roommate, exchanging ideas and thoughts about life and living. This cruise visited many wonderful sights, including a place in Canada which is thought to be the first and only known site established by Vikings in North America and the earliest evidence of a European settlement in the New World. As such, it is a unique milestone in the history of human migration and discovery. To think that I might have been walking among the same path that Erik the Great once walked was so humbling. The cruise was memorable for many reasons but mostly because of the people I encountered. Connections with people make all the world of difference to me and give my travel greater meaning. The people with whom I connected, however, were not what I had expected to find. I did not expect to find so very many inspirational people. Of all the people I met, a few still stand out in my mind to this day. One woman grew up in East Berlin before the “wall” fell. Her mother was a doctor, and her dad was a professor. After the wall fell, her mother was no longer allowed to practice medicine but finally got an assistant job in a medical clinic. Her dad ended up selling insurance. Many of her parents’ friends committed suicide because the change in their lives was so difficult, yet this young woman saw the change as opportunity, even though it radically changed her world. I couldn’t help but think that everything is about perspective. We Americans thought the wall falling was a good thing, yet many of those in East Berlin may have thought it wasn’t such a good thing at the very same time. Very thought-provoking. I met an eighty-eight-year-old man from England who sails on a cruise every month for the past fourteen years since his wife died. He gave half of his business away to a friend because he no longer needed it, then gave the other half to another friend because his kids no longer needed the business. His goal now in life is to be arrested for speeding when he is one hundred and ten! He said the secret to his success was to always be himself, work hard, and be kind to others. Such a simple ideology that I share. I met a couple from America. She used to be an opera singer who gave that up to open a pottery studio. He used to be a high-powered marketing entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. They decided to sail to New Zealand, and stopped in Hawaii for a few years along the way. When they went to New Zealand, they loved the attitudes of the people there and found them so refreshing that they decided to stay. They now reside there and are citizens of New Zealand. I met a German woman who lives in Abu Dhabi and works in Dubai. She traveled on the cruise as single woman without any companions and is a strong and powerful woman, having overcome a difficult family and homelife as a child. She reminds me of the female doctor we met who served in Kosovo yet remains lighthearted despite the atrocities she witnessed. During our cruise to the Arctic Circle, we realized how our experiences shape us and help to bring us to who we are today. The cruise was all about the luxury of THAT lesson, not the luxury of the accommodations, and was something that was an unexpected benefit of our travel. I didn’t expect to meet so many interesting people from such a wide variety of backgrounds and to connect so intimately with them on my trip.