Close... but not quite.

So I successfully made it across the street back to the Oslo airport this morning and leisurely checked into my flight to Alesund, Norway. Got on the plane, no problem! Flight going ahead of schedule - SAWEEET (since I had a tight turnaround time from the plane landing to catching the boat). Heading into final descent -- starting to get those butterflies of anticipation. WOOO. Plane pulls back up into the sky.... Whaaa??? Plane keeps going for a long time. This seems like the opposite of a descent? Pilot makes LOOOOONG annoucement in Norwegian. Everyone around me chatters in Norwegian. Flight attendant picks up radio. Through a thick accent I catch something along the lines of, "Due to thick fog we are unable to land in Alesund. We are rerouting and will get back to you with more information." 30 minutes later we land at the worlds tiniest airport -- could easily be mistaken for a parking lot. All hopes shattered for catching the cruise today...

We landed in Molde, a small city I'd never heard of. We waited for 45 minutes to see if the Alesund airport would open back up, but it didn't. They hired some buses to take the planeful of people to Alesund (a 2 hour bus ride not including traffic from some festival that I couldn't make out). A really nice woman translated the annoucements for me. I explained my dilemma to her and she suggested going inside to see if I could catch a flight back to Oslo (which would allow for much more flight flexibility than Alesund). I thanked her and did just that.

A swell idea indeed, in less than 25 minutes I was back on another plane headed back to Oslo. Of course, by this point I had had no access to a phone to tell anyone with Celebrity what was happening. The poor port agent waiting for me at Alesund was probably really pissed when I didn't show up with the bus. But there's only so much I can be responsible for keeping all 8 billion people involved with my travel plans (that are always a mess) in the loop.

So I'm back at the hotel I was at last night. In their business center which is becoming my second home. I just got my new itinerary via mail. I fly to amsterdam tomorrow at noon. Have to arrange a pickup from the hotel shuttle, and have to arrange transportation to the port with the port agent the next day.

Long story short, it will have taken me 5 days of travelling to join this damn boat!