We're working on week number three here in fabulous Toledo, the capital city of Castilla-La Mancha, the rockinest autonomous community this side of Extremadura. I think I'm actually beginning to understand what people are saying. Isabel, my Spanish mom, has always been easy to understand; she doesn't talk that fast. Pablo and Cristina, my Spanish brother and sister, have always been difficult to understand: they speak pretty fast. Consulting a dictionary, I read that English-speakers think that Spanish-speakers talk fast. In fact, they don't talk that fast; rather, they use all of the linguistic options available to them to their fullest extent (lips, tongue, throat, etc.). To speak Spanish correctly, they have to use these faculties all the time. English-speakers, by contrast, can get along with a very slack mouth. We're "lazy" when it comes to language (you can blame the Germans for that; English comes from Low German).

I read that several prominent people have died while I was here, including Katherine Hepburn, Buddy Hackett, and Strom Thurmond. I bet they burned a lot of crosses up in heaven on the day Strom Thurmond died. But it was to be expected, I suppose; he was 100 years old.

One of the classes I'm taking here is "Art of Toledo," which is a course where we visit a particular place in Toledo in the morning and then come back and talk about it in the afternoon. It's a surreal experience to be able to talk about a particular style of art and then walk down the street and see it, instead of just looking at slides or pictures in an art book. Want to see a Mudéjar tower? Okay, let's walk to the Iglesia de Santo Tomé and see it. How about a Gothic cathedral from the 15th century? That's even closer. Instead of looking at vaulted arches and buttresses on slides, we can walk into the Catedral and see the vaulted arches for ourselves. I was incredibly excited when I looked out of the Torreón here at the Fundación and saw honest-to-God buttresses on the Catedral here. And for those of you who've never seen a Gothic cathedral, it's quite amazing. If Ayn Rand could see it, she'd say that it's less a temple to God and more a temple to man's ability to create such a work of art. And this cathedral is medium-sized. The cathedral in Sevilla is ridiculously huge (I'm told) and holds the Guinness record for the church with the most square-footage. Even so, I'd still like to see Notre Dame, the Platonic Form of Gothic Cathedral.

And exactly 87.5% of the women in Spain are ridiculously attractive. But 75% of those women have boyfriends or husbands, so my odds aren't that good at all. There are two girls here from OSU upon whom I have my eye: if Katie is reading this, then she knows one of them already (your old roommate, remember?). Not only is she good-looking, but she makes jokes in the same manner I do, and she writes for one of the satirical rags at OSU. When she ended a sentence with, "To the moon, Alice!" I thought I was in love. But of course, we must all come back to reality and remember that this thing is only for three more weeks. I suppose, though, it doesn't hurt to give it the old college try. Which I'll do.

One of the other Spanish sisters I have, Salomé, asked me if I had a girlfriend. I told her no, but said I was always looking. She then told me that I shouldn't look; the right person will come to me. I suppose that's true: my experience has been that the best things happen when you least expect them or aren't thinking about them. But will I know the right person when I see her? I've always had terrible perception about that sort of thing. I need to head to the optometrist to change the prescription on my rose-colored glasses.