Many times in Granada I would sit by myself and read or people-watch in my favorite plaza. It was always full of Granadino families, the kids racing around while their parents shared a beer. Most times I sat close enough to the bar tables to shamelessly eavesdrop—anything in the name of learning Spanish! On one particular day I was reading some notes for school when two little kids ran up and started playing right next to me. I pretended to keep reading but was really listening to them the whole time, which they might have picked up on since I didn’t turn a single page for a full fifteen minutes.

I remember this conversation so vividly because it was a perfect snapshot of childhood, no matter what culture. The little boy and girl were playing tag and teasing each other, and then sat neatly on the bench so the boy could explain to the girl a present she had just received, but didn’t know how to use: a journal. The boy said, in the cutest little Andalucian accent, “It’s a diary, Ana. It’s for writing down all your secrets. See, this is where you write what day it is, always at the top. And then this is where you write everything that you’re thinking.”

The girl looked up and said mischievously, “I can write about you in there!” (Leave it to a five-year-old to tell the truth about love.) They immediately both shrieked with laughter, cackling like locos, and then the girl threw down the diary and they resumed chasing each other around the plaza. Enough romance, it was tag time again.

I looked around to see if all this was actually being filmed for a childhood flashback scene in a rom-com, but it was a truly organic exchange. I hope these kids marry each other in 20 years and I can come eavesdrop on their wedding vows.