My love for Spanish

Hola!!!
In the beginning let me make it very clear that " I don't know Spanish" but this is also true that I want to learn Spanish. Why Spanish? The love for Spanish or to be exact for Spain started during my school days when I read the poetry of Allama Iqbal glorifying the Moorish rule of Spain. The name of the cities Gharnata (Granada) and Qartba (Cordova) represented splendor and grandeur. During the same time Pakistan Television telecasted a serial " Shaheen" based on the novel of Nasim Hijazi. The story was based on the downfall of last Moorish ruler of Spain. The names of Badr bin Mugheera and Rabeea, the hero and heroine of the novel, still resonate my ears.
My first attempt to learn Spanish was during these same school days. I bought a small book Spanish Urdu Bol Chal, sort of a Spanish phrase book with no grammar, not of any use. Time kept passing and I kept building my knowledge about Spain and its history. The life of Abdur Rehman (Ad Dakhil) is one of the great stories of history that tells us how an uprooted prince of Damascus (Umayyad Dynasty) re-established the rule of Umayyad in Spain. I also learnt about Hasham the most pious ruler of Umayyad in Spain. The friendship between Abbasid Caliph Haroon Rasheed and Spanish ruler Charlemagne is also an interesting chapter of Spanish history.
As far as learning language was concern I had little success. In 1999 through Internet I started learning Spanish again. It was an interesting start. I joined Spanish language channels in MIRC (Bolivia, Mexico, Peru, Chile etc). On these channels I used to write hi and the answer I got was hola...so I learnt hola means hello. This was the beginning. Next I got was " de donde eres". I absolutely had no idea what it was. So opened the web site alt vista and used it translation facility by writing the sentence in the window and clicking translate " Spanish to English"...what I got was " from where you are"...so it means de donde eres. I wanted to ask if the chatter is male or female so I wrote m/f?? the answer came m. I thought the chatter was male but in fact it was female because I later discovered mujer is female and hombre is male. So in Spanish it is m/h? to ask for gender. Through these chatting sessions I learnt more words and sentences. Eprendiendo espanol...I am learning Spanish. Muchu Gusto...(Nice to meet you) Igualmente (same here) and blah blah blah. I also made friendship with a girl from Bolivia and I tried to write in Spanish by taking help from alta vista web site. My adventure in learning Spanish was limited on net and no one to speak to me so it didn't go much longer. Now here I know little bit of Spanish but of course I cannot claim that I know Spanish. I haven't given it up. I will one day learn Spanish and read Spanish literature without translation. The books of García Márquez will be among the first ones. Adios.