October 16, 2024
Hola! Anna Grace Hulings! My first visitor & SEVILLA, SPAIN!
Annie is my first cousin once removed? or second cousin ? or just easier to say niece - regardless FAMILY! So excited that we could hook up and meet in Seville, Spain. Annie is on a pending student visa; living in Madrid, in an apartment, on her own, for the first time. She is taking a conversational Spanish class to fine tune her language skills. She already graduated, last May, from the University of Delaware, with a dual major in Spanish and Criminal Justice and has aspirations for Law School. By coming to Spain, she is also able to continue her Synchronized Ice Skating passion, skating with the Spanish National Team. The team is comprised of 16 members with 2 alternates (3 of the members are non Spanish, 1 gentleman and 17 ladies, whose ages vary from 17 to 25 - she will be 22 next week!). They have a Russian coach, who also picks the music and designs the choreography. They are hoping this sport will get accepted into the Olympic Competitions soon, but for now they compete Internationally. She has competitions coming up in January in Paris, February in the Netherlands and April in Helsinki, Finland. We were so lucky that her brief fall break from skating lined up with my days in Seville, just a 2 hour train ride from Madrid! Also Annie had been here for one day in Seville, back in January, so she was our tour guide for our fun two the days. She got to spend last night on ship, in cabin right next to mine. Was so great to have this visit! Loved every minute of it! Below was our first stop Plaza de Espana built in 1928 in a lovely parque (park) for Expo 1929.
