Stockholm - here we come!

Finally in Stockholm! Arrived earlier today and the Race Village looks great, even if my brother Stefan and his fiancee Lisa missed the Volvo pavilion.... Fabienne and I took the train in the afternoon. A great way to travel, especially with Internet connection! We worked the whole way, very efficient! Arrived and had a short look at the Race Village and went for dinner at Sallys in Gamla stan. Very nice! Ingrid, Magnus and I had another glas of wine and my brother and Lisa joined us. We then went for a quick walk to the Race Village. The boats have just arrived to Sanhamn. There were many of us that hoped for Mange to win, but he ended up second, just a hundred meter after the winner Puma. Poor Mange, but second is not too bad! Looking forward to the boats arriving to Stockholm on Wednesday and to see you all in the Race Village!
Time for bed!

Stockholm waiting!

So, we have left Marstrand behind. We had a great, but very intense stopover! Boats coming in early, early morning on Thursday, which meant more or less no sleep that night... We then had a couple of days with rain and strong wind, but for the weekend the sun came out and we had two great days! Yesterday we saw the boats off to Stockholm. I was on the Ostindiefararen Gotheborg and helped out with the start gun. It was a great start with a lot of people out in smaller motorboats and lots of people on the rocks watching from the shore. The boats left and all looked good until we heard reports of Telefonica Blue had hit a rock. They sat on the rock for two hours before they got help to get off the rock and back to shore. They will not sail this leg and the fight for the second place is probably over... It's really a shame as we had hoped for Telefonica Blue and Puma to put up a good show now at the end of the race as there is only one point between them on the score board! Poor Bowe Bekking, the skipper. His boat Moviestar sank last race in the Atlantic and now it looks like the fight is over again before the race is over. They are currently asessing the damages to the boat and hopefully they will get to Stockholm, but they were not too optimistic about it yesterday.
For me, I'm in the apartment and did three machines of laundry yesterday when I got home and are now going to try to repack to get the train to Stockholm this afternoon and arrive around 18. I'm usually in the Volvo Pavilion all days, or around Race Village, so come and visit! I'm leaving for St Petersburg next Thursday morning, so I have more than a week in Stockholm which feels good! Hope to see you soon!

Another day in the office...

Finally we moved out to Marstrand! The days after I came back from Galway has been hectic, but it feels very good to be on site. We spent most of the day yesterday working in the backyard of where Linda and Ebba stays and it worked very good! We got a lot done! I just had breakfast on the balcony of where I'm staying overlooking Grand Hotel and the harbour. Not too bad of an view in morning sun. So, time for a walk around the island and then work for the rest of the day.
The boats are on their way and are estimated to arrive on Thursday afternoon as the winds are to be light when they are getting nearer Sweden. It's gonna be amazing to see the fleet docked at Marstrand!

15 minutes of fame....

So, been to Galway a week and back in Göteborg again! Great stopover with a lot of public and great sailing in Saturday's Inport race. It rained, was cold and windy the first days, but in time for the big weekend the sun came out and we had very good weather and wind. Had a good day together with our Volvo guests on Saturday. Helped our Ericsson commentator Jimmy to make sure he had what he needed. He's the IT guy from Ericsson handling all the computers on board the boats and on shore. Turned out he is from Järfälla and currently live in Bolinderstrand in Kallhäll. The world is small sometimes, but I'm staying far away from IT guys these days.. :-) On Sunday I got the treat to go out with Mark Covell, used to be Media Crew Member on Team Russia, on the media boat that is going to follow the race boats the rest of the race from Galway to St Petersburg. It is purpously built for a film crew to be able to film regardless high waves etc and the boat is strong enough to be able to follow the speed of the race boats. We had a great day in the sun on the water and Mark is a great speaker and told us all the little details about the boats and the teams. Finished the day with a great Leg Prize Giving Dinner where it got way too late and too much white wine... Mark was a gentleman and kept filling up my glas at dinner... It didn't do much good either the two beer Edward and I had before even getting to the dinner... (Strange I didn't learn from Leg Prize Giving Dinner in Boston, but at least this time there were no shots...)
And I finally got caught on the TV4 camera and had my 15 minutes of fame at TV4! (or maybe one minute to be exact...)
http://tv4play.se/sport/volvo_ocean_race?videoId=1.1027677&renderingdepartment=2.34731
About 7 minutes into the film when they're interviewing Bowe Bekking, skipper of Telefonica Blue, when coming back to shore and we're standing in the background talking about the day. (One for the "Jag mötte Lassie", I was the one telling Marcus from TV4 that Bowe Bekking was on his way, so they could do the interview...)
So, no rest! Came back yesterday night and spent a full day at work to start to sort out the mess in Marstrand to finally give up at 21 this evening. The stopovers from here are so tight so there is really no time between them and it's full on from now on.
I hope to be able to visit my little house this weekend as the neighbours wanted to cut the hedges, even if I move out to Marstrand already Friday evening, and hopefully also visit Anneli Utter on my way out to Marstrand. If I get a few minutes over I will try to upload some images from Galway, but I don't dear to promise anything...
So soon we will be in Stockholm and I hope to meet most of you then!

Full on weekend!

Monday morning and I can look back at a busy weekend and overall everything went very well! We had about 300 hundred guests for our Warm up evening on Friday, which went very well! It was a success which feels good after all the different formats we tried, but this worked in the US. Saturday morning we had a breakfast for 200 persons, which also went very well with the Swedish sailor Roger Nilson. Most of the guests though didn't show up until later in the morning, but by the end we were full house.
Then we had the Inport race. As I'm responsible for this port I had to stay onshore. We got all the boats out there with our guests and commentators and they had a very good day, even if there was not a lot of wind and quite foggy. Christina and I took the chance when it was calmer to go for lunch at the Barking Crab. Very nice! The only emergencies during the day was when we had to get the Saudi Prince off the Swedish Kings VIP boat. Considering that the race track was about 40 minutes boat ride out, I believe we did a great job in getting him in! When they called about an hour later and wanted a sea sick lady to come ashore I didn't think we would solve it, but we did and she got to shore too thanks to our TV Team. Felt like a good job done to get them in!
Saturday night we were invited by Marge to a Clam Bake. They had steamed lobster, mussels and steemers and it was great! Very good food and a lot of fun!
Sunday we had the Pro Am race in the harbour with a lot of guests. It was a great day with sun, but a lot of wind, so they had to change the format of the racing to match racing instead of fleet racing. They were timing the laps and then adding up the totals. I believe both guests, crews and public really enjoyed the day! And in the evening the weekend ended with the Leg Price Giving dinner. Edward and Johan lurd me into a couple of beers and Raspberry Vodka before we even got there, so we were quite late, but it was a great dinner, which continued at a bar until late. I've taken a sleep in this morning, but now it's time to get into the shower and down to Race Village.
Tomorrow I'm off work and will try to go to Newport with Ingrid and Annika. Really looking forward to that!

After Sail in the Volvo pavilion

We had the last After Sail in our pavilion yesterday. It was a huge success! Very good with a lot of people showing up! Edward and I bought matching t-shirts at the Puma store. Mine saying "Lookin for a drunken sailah" and his saying "I´m a drunken sailah"...

Mikes pastrys

We ended the evening at Mikes pastrys. What a great place! The cakes are huge! I finally had a cannoli and it was great! It's in the North End of Boston, also known as the Italian quarters.

Union Oyster House

Monday night Ingrid, Marge and I went to the Union Oyster House. A great place, Americas oldest restaurant that has great boiled lobster!

A car in Lego!

Yesterday it arrived, the car built in Lego! It took them about four months and over 200 000 pieces of Lego.

The frogs and lizzards are great!

Boston Bruins semifinal!

The four of us went to see Boston Bruins vs. Carolina Hurricanes. Elenor and I. Most people had the team colours, black and yellow. It was great to be there, but the bruins lost and the hockey was not that great... Anyhow a great evening!

Lunch at the Barking Crab

This place has quickly turned into my favourite restaurant in Boston! It doesn't look much from the outside, but the lobster roll is to die for! Three times out of three I've had the lobster roll, so I guess I need to try something different next time... This time I got Ingrid and Marge with me. Marge works for Volvo Group North America and is spending the week here with us.

Saturday in Boston Common Park

Had the Saturday morning off so I took a walk to the Boston Common Park in full bloom. Had breakfast at a café, went past the pub Cheers (from the sit com series) and eventually ended up in Fanueil hall that had a lot of shops, market and very nice atmosphere! Did some shopping before I had to head back to the hotel.

More images in http://picasaweb.google.se/Grahn.Jessica/BostonUSA#

All boats on land!

Green Dragon was the last boat to be picked up on land and is now being worked on.

Delta Lloyd arrives at dawn!

Telefonica Black and Delta Lloyd arrives!

Bright and early on Monday morning Telefonica Black and Delta Lloyd arrives to Boston with just some minutes appart them! The two hour call came about 3.30 in the morning and I was down in the pavilion by 4 am. The teams did customs in our pavilion and we had some coffee and tea available for the teams, so someone had to be there.
So with the two teams safe home, I'm heading back to the hotel for some sleep...

Ericsson 3 comes into Boston in full speed!

What a finish!

Ericsson 4, Ericsson 3 and Telefonica Blue all finished within about 10 minutes on Sunday afternoon. Very good for the public and considering that they spent about 14 days at sea! We went out with Mattias to meet the Ericsson boats. A beautiful day with almost summer heat!
All images are under Boston in my web album:
http://picasaweb.google.se/Grahn.Jessica

Morning walks..

Got into the routine of taking a walk along the harbour every morning. (Except the other day when it was a little bit too much white wine and late evening to get up early...) It's interesting how different it is in the different countries. In Rio, when going out at 6.30 in the morning, you often met a lot of people still partying or on their way home from the pubs. In Boston, people are on their way to work and you meet the commuters coming with the ferry. They have arranged a very nice board walk along the harbour. The weather has been lovely the last days and now it's also getting a bit warmer. It's nice to feel totally safe when going out. Ingrid came yesterday, so now I also have company for my walks. As the breakfast is not included we bought some at the cafe on the way back and after a very leasury morning, it's now time to get going. We're opening the race village today and with the nice weather it's hopefully gonna be some people.
Hope the warmth has come to Sweden too!

Boston!

In Boston! Very nice city! The Race Village is still looking like a construction site, but hopefully they get done in time for the opening on Saturday the 25th of April.
The boats are due around Sunday/Monday depending on the winds.
Weather is like Spring home. It was very nice this morning when I was out for a walk along the water, but now it's raining and around 10 degrees... Everyone says it's going to improve this weekend with sun and 25 degrees, so that's gonna be good!