Anita Arnon

but he's looking for a cause.

By his late teens, like many wealthy brats of his age, he does this grand tour of Europe.

We can sort of grow up with this idea of the grand tour, but Willie, for those who don't know what the grand tour is, just describe what it actually entails.

At the Parthenon.

Yes, doing a Cayley at the Parthenon.

Yeah, rich Europeans did the same thing.

And the Creole class, who identified largely as being Spanish, because they had all the wealth and they were exporting it to Spain primarily, they felt more Spanish.

So they, of course, would follow that same trajectory.

And then you have it sort of in 1802.

Well, sad bits, right?

So he's only 19.

So he's a baby, but he feels like a man.

And in Spain, he meets a woman that changes the trajectory of his life.

Maria Teresa Rodriguez del Toro y Alasia.

And she's an aristocratic Spanish woman.

She says it.

I mean, she's always depicted as this rare beauty, like, you know, really just spectacularly beautiful woman.

Well, OK, so they fall in love.

And there's two beautiful people in love the whole of the rest of their lives ahead of them.

They return to Venezuela.