Fred and I both have a thing for looking at old houses. More specifically, old Spanish houses. Our penchant for this architectural beauty began long before we met. When I was a pre-teener, I would always stop and linger for a while whenever I see Spanish houses. I remember there was one along the street where I grew up. And there was another on the way to school. A rich classmate lived there and his stories of his Spanish grandmother's extravagant parties and condescending attitude were reminiscent of my childhood's after-school days. Because the house was so big that it stretched over half the street, my other classmates and I found joy in walking along its beautiful garden. We didn't drop by to enjoy the flowers but to get a good glimpse of what's inside that old mansion. Sadly, befriending the caretaker and the gardener and convincing our rich classmate that we wouldn't be over five minutes inside his house were all futile ways of getting past that elusi...