What is this ? The vertebral column of a house ?

Trains does lost themself too. Versailles. 

Even rocks seems specials here. Versailles. 

Strange scenes at Versailles (the city). 

L'Arc de Triomphe and the Tour Eiffel in the night. 

Cheval à Versailles. 

First post from France

Hi there !

This my first serious post in the blog. I hope to be posting at least once per month during the next three years. My name is Rodrigo Benenson. I speak french, spanish and english, but I will write the posts in english to allow most of my friends to read them.

The year 2004 was a very exiting one for me. Plenty of things happened during my last year as a student of Electronic Engineering at the UTFSM (Chile, South America). There were at least four major events:

• I started a new project in the Center of Robotics to create the first UTFSM RoboCup Team. That project evolved pretty fine, we got considerable funding and I meet a great team of students. It was a superb experience ! (look at the photos here)

• I finished my courses and wrote my Engineer tesis. Thus, during december 2004 I obtained a 100 over 100 in my graduation exam and became officially an Electronics Engineer (photos here)

• Alejandro Cañete invited me to join the startup "WeInnovate". During December 2004 we won (one of the three winners) the UTFSM Incubator annual concours, so we have resource to run the company during his first year of life.

• I sent a mail to Michel Parent to present my interest to participate in the IMARA team.

That mail was the start of a cascade of events that made me take an airplane the 14 January 2005, to quit Chile and go back to my natal land; la France.

Actually I'm starting my PhD at the Ecole de Mines de Paris (a very prestigious French "university") and working the IMARA team in the INRIA Rocquencourt.

The life here in Paris (well in Île-de-France to be more exact) brings me a lot a pleasant rememberances of my childhood.

Actually I'm living at the home of Hélène Raskine a friend of my mom which played the role of grandmather while I was a child. Actually the Raskines have commom roots with the Benensons (four generations upward I think).

As I arrived to France just some days ago I still doing plenty of administrative procedures. I'm working to get a social appartment where to live independently.

Ok, it is a short post, but it is late and I have have plenty of things to do during these days, on the administrative side and in the "team insertion" aspects. Here in Paris there are plenty of things to do, I have some old friends, and there is also known people all around Europe, so if the PhD goes fine I envisage a lot of fun activities.

My primary communications channels will be this blog and Skype. Skype yourself ! I did not wrote before because I did not had internet access until yesterday, as I'm a busy student, please be patients for the next post (blog comments are well received).

To finish this post some photos, of course !

James (my father) had a motocycle accident (broken femur) so he have to stay calm for three months. As you can see the photo passion seems to be genetic.

Cycabs at the IMARA lab. 

This photo was took at the ENSMP (Ecole des Mines de Paris). The construction was originally an Hotel, so it is plenty of strange paths and tunels. 

My first day at the INRIA IMARA was plenty of fun. Here we see Mikael and Steve preparing a demo for this Friday in the Twingo. 

This is me with the Raskine Landon familly that received me the first day. Anne Raskine is the daughter of Hélène. 

Look at this, a special edition Nutella 2005 of 3 Kg !!! Thanks Ferrero ! 

God does abstract art. Flying over Spain. 

We live in a strange world. 

When I arrived at Buenos Aires (on the path to Paris) there was a tropical rain. We saw a gorgeous rainbow. As you can see, I flew in the 'not so bad' Aerolineas Argentinas. 

During the fly. 

Mom, Viviana (friend of my mom) and me at the airport, in front of a jewellery. 

This sad tree can be found in the road between Santiago and Valparaiso. In someway it represent part of my spirit the day I left Chile.