Norway/Seattle - July 6-8, 2013

My original flight back to SF was meant to depart Oslo at 11:25 am flying through Newark to SF.  However, at the airport, I managed to switch onto flights that went to Frankfurt and then from there to SF.  All went smoothly until about 3 hours before we were to arrive in SF when the pilot came over the speaker to tell us that there had been an incident at SFO so we were being diverted to Seattle.  They later confirmed that there had been a crash of an Asiana plane at SFO.  Considering the sudden nature of this change, we were lucky to land in Seattle, get a gate, go through customs and get our bags rather quickly.  From there, it went down hill.  We had to trek to the train to get to the main terminal where we stood on a stationary line with only two United workers handling the entire plane of people.  Finally, a spokesperson came out and said they were going to work first to get those who had other destinations beyond SF to those destinations.  At the same time, they were trying to secure hotel rooms for the rest of us and expected we wouldn't get back to SF before Sunday (the next day).

Rather than wait for hours, I had my parents help me reserve a room at the Hampton Inn at the airport and proceeded by shuttle to check into my room.  Once I dropped my bags and got refreshed, I went back to the airport to find out when I might get back to SF.  Long story short, they had me on a 3 pm flight Sunday that was then cancelled, a flight from Vancouver on Monday but then I was taken off that flight and promises of maybe a flight on Wednesday.

I got a reasonable night's sleep and on Sunday decided it would be faster to rent a car and drive back to SF than to wait for days to get on a flight.  I left Seattle at 11 am and drove to Red Bluff in CA arriving at 9:30 pm.  After a good night's sleep, I departed again on Monday morning just after 7 am and was able to return the rental car within the first 24 hours.  It took the rest of the week and then some to recover from the travel to get home but in the end the trip was so well worth it!