TravelStream™ news feed for member guillaumevienne on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/guillaumevienne en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Wed, 21 Jan 2009 02:51:05 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/guillaumevienne/3/1227823680/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/guillaumevienne/3/1227823680/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/guillaumevienne/3/1227823680/tpod.html Wed, 21 Jan 2009 02:51:05 -0500 Le beau monde de mon père

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Tourcoing, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France

J'ai envie de partager quelques photos de mon père, Daniel, tout en racontant un peu sa vie:

Daniel est né à Tourcoing dans le nord de la France le 16 mars 1935 et il nous a quittés à Louveciennes, près de Versailles, le 9 novembre 2008. Il est le fils d'Ignace Vienne et de Marie-Odile Ducoulombier. Jules, le père d'Ignace eu quatorze enfants, et Ignace et Marie-Odile en eurent huit, quatre filles et quatre fils. Daniel fut d'abord petit et plutôt rond, ce pourquoi ses frères et soeurs le surnomaient "Mayenne", en référence au duc de Mayenne, qu'Henri IV, qui était grand et élancé, agaçait en marchant trop vite à ses cotés. Daniel était Ch'ti de naissance mais périgourdin d'adoption. Avant même l'âge d'un an ses parents décidèrent de déménager à Périgeux, une ville du sud-ouest truffée de charme.
Daniel a du subir la deuxième guerre mondiale dans son enfance, avec tous ses drames et ses difficultés matérielles. Il fut éduqué dans des établissements catholiques puis il fit une licence de droit à Bordeaux et ensuite alla étudier à Science-Po Paris. Il en a toujours gardé un grand intérêt pour la politique et les questions de société.
Le 9 juillet 1960 il épousa Brigitte Mauguière, dont il avait fait la connaissance rue de la pompe, chez son frère Bernard. . Leur premier enfant, Sabine, vint au monde à Paris le 8 décembre 1961. Puis se fut le tour de Jacques à Troyes, le 14 janvier 1963, et enfin de Guillaume, le petit dernier, à Versailles le 6 décembre 1966.
Par chance, en 1970 son travail dans les assurances l'amena à Madagascar, cette superbe île en forme de pied droit au sud-est de l'océan indien. C'était une grande découverte pour nous tous et la nature y était un spectacle permanent. Après quatre ans à Tannanarive nous sommes allés en Tunisie cette fois-ci. Nous avions la chance de résider à Carthage, une ville qui avait longtemps tenu tête à l'empire romain et des vestiges de ces deux civilisations étaient omniprésents. En 1976 nous étions de retour en région parisienne, d'abord à Bougival, puis à Louveciennes. Mes parents ont toujours continué à voyager fréquemment et leurs enfants ont certainement attrapé le virus car Jacques vit en Espagne, moi en Chine, et Sabine travaille à l'international avec des déplacements un peu partout dans le monde.
Juste après son mariage Daniel avait été réformé pour problèmes cardiaques, et surtout les médecins avaient prévu qu'il ne vivrait pas trois ans. Heureusement, il n'en fut rien et sa vie fut bien remplie. Daniel aimait les mots, en particulier la poésie (j'ai choisi de lire un poème de Joachim de Bellay pour sa messe d'A Dieu), et il faisait des discours plein d'humour. Il aimait aussi beaucoup le sport (il pratiquait le ping pong, le tennis, la randonnée, le jogging) et la musique classique.
Il laisse une famille unie derrière lui, de très bons amis, et un monde qu'il voulait meilleur.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/guillaumevienne/1/1219847280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/guillaumevienne/1/1219847280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/guillaumevienne/1/1219847280/tpod.html Mon, 12 Jan 2009 07:01:07 -0500 Dom & Beate's wedding in Asker near Oslo

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Asker, Oslo, Norway

Hello friends,
On popular demand here is a little report on the wonderful Nordic wedding of Dominic and Beate, now known as the Tilleys of Dortmund. This is actually my first blog. I think that a blog must be a good way to share this great souvenir. These days I do not go to weddings as much as I used to, but my last wedding before this one was a quite incredible "factory wedding". My friend Ying had invited me to participate. The place was indeed a hugely romantic factory hall in Yuhang, a rundown suburbs of Hangzhou, China, where I live at present (game: find the 5 odd pictures).
Well, Dom & Beate's was more my type of wedding. It took place in Asker, a very nice suburbs of Oslo, on Saturday the 9th of August 2008. It started at 2pm with the service. A smart and well informed pastor said touching words and the musician did the rest to lift us all. After the ceremony we took a few pictures but the weather was not always cooperative. (Jeg elsker det norsk sommer!). And then we started to mingle. Apart from Dom and his mother, I did not know the participants. As expected it was quite cosmopolitan with Norwegians and Zambians and Brits of course, but also Germans, crazy Danes, an Australian, a froggy and probably more nationalities. Besides, there was no set dress code. I liked this diversity. We were coming from different horizons but I must say the the Norwegians had a very warm welcoming attitude that set the tone. Despite the noticeable absence of alcohol (btw I vaguely remember ending this memorable factory wedding of Yuhang under the influence of Baijiu, a lethal Chinese liquor), we were definitely merry. By the way, the homemade cakes were delicious. A couple had taken in charge the animation and they did a fantastic job. Apart from excellent speeches, there were songs, plays, and videos. We also performed a Zambian dance expertly taught by Dom and Beate, unusual and definitely great fun! While thanking people for coming I did appreciate that Dom mentioned the "midnight picnic"which we organized in Copenhagen. It was one of his many great ideas, which became a memorable night indeed.
I was very frequently with Dom while we both lived in Copenhagen and after having heard of many of the people dear to him it was great to finally meet them. It was also the first time I met Beate, who besides looking pretty gave me the impression of being very kind. The videos from her little students in Germany and herself clearly witnessed this as well. There was also an hilarious video of her in Norwegian which I would love to upload on this blog. I say hilarious but this is judging from my neighbors laughs. In fact I did not understand much. Whatever was meant the Norwegian language always sounds fun to me. I also remember a lovely German transvestite princess fairytale! I had not felt the time flying and it was already dark (remember it's Norway in the summer) when we all left Dom and Beate, who flew to the Seychelles the day after. I am sure they will not feel the time flying together as well.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/guillaumevienne/2/1222959600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/guillaumevienne/2/1222959600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/guillaumevienne/2/1222959600/tpod.html Mon, 20 Oct 2008 05:23:16 -0400 ChinaTrip

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Ningbo, Zhejiang, China

This week is a golden week for the deserving Chinese workers, they do not have to work. The highlight of this national holiday is GuoQingJie, celebrating the birthday of the People Republic of China on the 1st of October 1949. I spent the 1st of October 2008 with my friend Hank (Han Zhou) visiting the supermodern "financial center" of Hangzhou called QiangJiangXinCheng, a symbol of "socialism with Chinese characteristics".
But from the 2nd to the 4th of October I escaped modern civilization and its financial crisis. By joining LuYouZhongGuo, a rambling club which I discovered thanks to my friend Ying, I could reach the island of YuShanDao about 20 miles from Shipu, on the coast of Zhejiang. In fact the trip was initially planned from the 29th of September to the 1st of October but it was postponed because of one of these nasty typhoons that frequently invite themselves on the coast in this season, usually after gatecrashing Taiwan first.
I had to wake up before 6am, but I would have woken up at 3am if required. It took a long time to get there: 4:30 by bus from Hangzhou to Shipu and about 2:30 by boat from there to the mystery island.
The boat immediately gave the nice impression of retiring from the city and joining the natural world. We were all confined over this tiny hull, and this gave us the opportunity to talk and talk and get to know each other. Nevertheless we could not wait to be on the island and we disembarked franticly. On top of the first hill on the island path we could see the eastern harbor, and behind our camp, with a small archipelago of five inhabited islands as a background. Before dark we erected our tents in a cluster. We went to see what the harbor had to offer in terms of swimming. A lot of water with loads of salt inside and a touch of oil on top but never mind, I was resolved to immerse my body and set my muscles in action. A few joined in. We then looked for dinner. Clearly it would be seafood. This is the island's livelihood. This evening we dug in the dishes with our chopsticks ("kaizi") as during the pearl harbor attack. The "fishy" stuff disappeared in a "blitz" and we were rapidly left with dipping our chopsticks in sticky rice. In fact the local we had dealt with clearly wanted to maximize profit. Later meals were much much better, with the climax for the last lunch before leaving on Shipu harbor - simply deli-sea-ous. We lit a bonfire in the evening like boy scouts. Fire is always captivating, and we had quite a bit of entertainment around it. The sky was clear and the stars all showed up, I checked!
The 3rd of October was the big day or the only full day on the island. An adventurous few went to search for the distant public bathroom but clearly the place was not very hospitable. We then walked up to the top of the island with the lighthouse as a landmark. And inside, around the light, stood four Fresnel lenses, how great! The sky was blue, the visibility excellent, and the coast rocky and fragmented. Below the lighthouse, a huge gate made of sharp angled rocks was opened to the sea. Massive and beautiful! Among us there was another "Laowai" (foreigner) in the person of Emi, a nice American girl recently arrived in China. We wanted to swim but the waves were big and the coast was very rocky. Never mind the rocks, we had to plunge into H2O+NaCl. Except that Emi fell on a sharp rock, which teared her swimming suit at a rather embarrassing place. It was fantastic to swim there, and after a while I was under the impression that flesh had grown between my fingers, a fin was anchored on my back, and gills were inserted in my cheeks. Luckily I did not get caught in the fishermen's nets. While the locals were catching fish, Caroline (YingYang, alias Sammie) shot whatever caught the attention of her well-trained eyes (+ hardware that goes behind). The net is now fed with her artistic catch, see: http://smile-yang.blog.163.com/.
After the lunch we played cards (I am still not quite sure about the rules but I had an excellent adviser), and it was time for a siesta on a rock. But there was no tree to cast a shadow on my bright red skin. Then it was time to cool down again. We did not dare brave gravity on sharp rocks so we aimed for a more "beachy" launchpad. Fine except that this was also a giant garbage dump.
That night I slept outside the tent despite the wind ("a la belle etoile"). The sunrise over the little archipelago was a wonderful sight to start the new day.



On the way back to Hangzhou, we were all sleeping, but with beautiful images in our little brains.
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