The Man I Almost Met for 18 Minutes in an Edinburgh Coffee Shop - Bert Bartz

A cruise is an experience most people find excitingan enjoyable, once-in-a-lifetime experience. For one woman, however, it is sheer hell.

Before the cruise, however, she is an American on her first trip to Edinburgh, where she chats with a man in a coffee shop for less than an hour. Although she feels a strong connection, afterward, she goes on her way. But once shes back home, she cant stop thinking about him. Was it a missed chance? She has to go backand so her friend Bimsa convinces her that the only way to get there is by cruise ship. Trapped, crowded, and huddled in with bizarre people who drive her crazy and stuck in circumstances only slightly better than a bad case of hemorrhoids, the heroine is happy to drown herself in scotch. In spite of the insanity, however, she is motivated to reach the other side of the pond, where she will revisit that one perfect moment in timemaybe.

In this novella, after a random encounter with a man while on a trip to Scotland, a young woman is persuaded to take a cruise to go back, despite her hatred of cruise ships.