Ok, it’s freezing here. Actually, it’s freezing here, as in “directly in front of the computer, or, more generally, inside the apartment.” Outside, it’s nice. It’s sunny most days, and it usually gets up to about 55 or 60. Why so cold inside, then? Oh, because no one has heat. Well, rich people have heat. It is sort of like that weird central vacuum system that some people get at home: not the kind of thing anyone ever talks about missing, but pretty cool when you get to experience it in action.

This odd difference in comfort between inside – cold – and outside – nice, leads to the equally odd habit of waking up, dressing as if we are about to go hunting for moose, and then doing whatever it is we do around the house. Then, after lunch, when it’s time to venture out, it’s time to change into normal spring clothes. Last week we took advantage of an especially clear day to visit Casa Mila. We had been there before, as you might remember, but we didn’t really tour the whole casa, just the attached museum.

This time, we went to the casa. Inside is a small museum with a lot of models built by Gaudi for his projects. It appears that he worked like something of a mad scientist, constructing elaborate nets of string and lead weights to look like the church, or whatever, would appear if it were upside down, then using a mirror to see what it would really look like. People in Barcelona love Gaudi now, but they thought he was nuts when he started designing buildings that looked like, well, like nothing anyone had ever seen before.

The front façade, for example, of La Pedrera, is one of the first not used to actually bear weight. This allowed it to be very curvy and include enormous windows and other fun things. Gaudi heaped so much stone on the Mila House that people here started to call it the “The Quarry” – La Pedrera, a name that has stuck. Inside, it is a fine example of Modernista architecture. It has excellent parquet floors, fancy woodwork, and wild marble sinks.

The roof, though, is something else altogether. Like many roofs, it has a number of exhaust towers and doors leading into and out of the top floor. Here, though, the towers are disguised in funky stone and mosaic designs. Some have faces on them. It also functions as sort of a solar oven used mainly, it appeared, for frying British and Japanese tourists. It was a delightful day.

One reason it was delightful is that it would provide something to talk about with my intercambio, who many of you know as “Luis,” that being his name. His scary factor has decreased quite a bit, and in its place his dull factor has risen. I went to meet him later that day and told him about it. Do you like the architecture here?, I asked. Not really. Have you been to La Pedrera? Once, maybe. Ok, did you do anything fun for New Years’? No. For Christmas? Had dinner. The conversation got a bit more animated when I told Luis about going to a club after our bizarre Christmas party and nearly being beaten up by the bouncer for, I think, using the electric hand dryer. “You must have been scary,” said Luis.

“I was scared,” I said. “Scared. He was scary. Get it?” No. Twenty minutes later, I had acted out the following in a crowded coffee shop.

• Someone jumping out from behind a tree
  
• A monster with claws
  
• The bouncer, shoving me around
  

Then I wrote out the entire conjugation of “scared” in the present and past tense, pointing out how the past tense form is the same as the past participle. I tell you, it was riveting. Luis loved it. “A ha!” he said. “I am scared of things that are scary!”

Then I asked him, “Do you need to use that word a lot?” I guess now that that’s a personal question, but I was really wondering, like, why take twenty minutes to learn how to say, “I’m scared."? Personally, I’d rather learn how to tell a barber how to cut your hair, or something useful (Yes, I have had a haircut here, without really being able to say much beyond, “shorter” and “normal, please.” It was nerve-wracking.)

He said that he did need to use it, and I did not pursue this line of conversation. I changed the subject by asking about his hobbies. A gold mine. He talked for about forty-five minutes about his favorite, favorite thing to do. He was as animated as I’ve ever seen him, in our long…um…relationship. It was great practice for me, in the listening department, and now I’ve been exposed to all the vocabulary I’ll ever need, in the event that I attend, in Spain, any sort of gathering where the topic of conversation is…model trains.

Model trains. Are you in a model train club? I asked, implying, of course, that maybe other people could be involved. Yes, he said, but they only meet once a year. In Frankfurt, actually, which, I’ll bet you didn’t know, is the world’s model train capital. Mostly, he hangs around the house – “the house,” in this case, meaning the one belonging to his parents – and paints little trees, sets up fake hills, and puts the little guys where they belong. Then the trains go around in a big circle, just like you did when you were seven years old or whatever.

Then, when we were leaving, we had to walk past a model train store. There I was treated to a long explanation of how Lionel lost its place at the top of the electric train world to a couple of upstarts from the Frankfurt area. I realized then, hearing about the different types of track sizes one can purchase, that I should have asked for the words for “scary” and “scared” myself. I needed them both.