Yesterday I couldn't find Aon so I made my way myself after breakfast down to Cataluña Place where the Apple Store is. I have never been in one before. All these guys stand around on the main floor (they're called "geniuses" I think. that's what Margaret's son does in Florida). Each table has a display if different Apple products. I went to the iPad table and was told to go downstairs to buy products. I guess they are just there to answer your questions, not sell you something. I quickly bought the card reader I need to put in the memory chip for the camera to upload pictures I to the iPad so I can send them to Judy. I went back upstairs and spent the next 1/2 hour inundating Judy with pictures from my trip so far. then serums on it that has a cable car I discovered I could put a caption at the top of each one so started to do that. Wi-Fi connection was great so I had a great time. In my dorms own the Costa Brava from France. Room there is no Wi-Fi until I go downstairs to the common room.
This is a nice campus of some sort, though not where the retreat is being held. Except for the dog that starts constantly outside my window nonstop in the mornings! The metro system is pretty straight-forward and a short walk from here.
I then walked down La Ramblas again. This is a long boulevard with a pedestrian walkway down the middle with stalls along either side mostly for tourist stuff. This walkway goes for blocks all the way down to the old harbor where the huge statue of Christopher Columbus is. The working harbor that used to be here when I was here in the 60s was moved over behind Montjuic, this high hill with museums on top. This old harbor was renovated for the Olympics in 92. I remember traveling with Doug, Kerry, and my nephew Geoffrey - 15, 16, and 17 that summer and we wanted to just stop in BCN BEFORE to see the new buildings ready for the games. We could not get a seat on any train coming here from the coast of France. Instead ( we were headed to the algarve area of southern Portugal to meet up with Geoff's parents) we had to go north of the Pyrenees to the Atlantic coast and cross into at . Then we traveled north all night in a very crowded compartment with the four of us and a Portuguese family! Not one of our more comfortable traveling nights! We never saw anything of the Olympics that year except on TV!
I went through that market again and got my fresh squeezed juice, this time mango and papaya! I picked a sandwich and a box of cherries for lunch and figured out how to get to the Forum where Doug was setting up for tonight. When I got out of the metro, I walked toward the Forum which is down near the beach but out past the train station. I found a little bistro where I had a beer and ate my lunch/dinner. There I could see a couple of brown-robed monastics walking near a buildings in the distance so knew I was in the right place. After a couple of missteps I found the right entrance and had to talk my way inside. the guard wanted a "number" so I finally wrote my social security number and he gave me a yellow wristband. downstairs. I found the HUGE auditorium where they were setting up and testing the sound system and lighting. So much work goes into arranging for an event like this and Doug was bustling around and seemed to be the go-to person. I think it was probably that, except for Michael, the former Phap Son but now dressed in regular clothes rather than robes, who would be the Catalan translator that night for Thay who spoke in English. Doug is the only monastic who speaks fluent Spanish. He took me to the rest area for staff where they were having lunch and I had some more fruit. Doug said he had a 1/2 hour before a meeting at 3 and he and another monk were going swimming! We apparently were near the Mediterranean Sea but I couldn't see it when I came in. I never know when he's joking or not but he went off. I went to the rest area for volunteers and typed a blog, read the International newspaper in English I had picked up and guarded one guy's cell phone he was charging.
Later this guys suggested I might want to go out to the stage area and hear them practicing the music. There was Doug up on the stage with a Catalan woman and the cell phone guy singing a few songs they were going to sing that night. I tried to record some of it on my iPad. I hadn't heard Doug sing in awhile and forgotten what a lovely voice he has!! Comes from the Mitchell (my mother's side) of the family. I've recently learned what a lovely voice Kerry also has when I heard her singing the songs from FROZEN with Sarah and Jackson. That night before the meditation before Thay appeared, Doug and the others were like the crowd warm-up! Rather the crowd simmer down group! It was tough to get a crowd of 1000 Catalans all greeting each other and babbling to get in the mood for something quiet like Thay's talk! They sang beautifully and Phap Do was videotaping the whole thing from the front row so maybe I can get a copy later. I finally got my assigned seat - every seat had been sold out and by7:25 every seat was filled! I had a seat in the very front row right on the end! It was fantastic! they treat moms-of-monastics REALLY well! Thay appeared and everyone quieted down while he got seated. There was an enormous screen just behind projecting him so everyone, even those way up in the balcony could see. He spoke for about an hour, interrupted once in awhile when the sister would invite the bell for everyone to take a breath, including Thay. The guy IS 87 and to speak for that long in front of such a group was amazing! Michael was off to the side translating into Catalan for the audience.
I forgot to mention the crowds who were lined up outside at 5:30 waiting to get in. We ate pizza for dinner outside on the grass watching them. One of the sisters I hadn't met before came over to sit with me. She's from Melbourne, Australia, but originally from Vietnam. Very sweet!
At the end of the talk Thay left and Sister Chan Kong sang a beautiful song first in French and then in English. I think she is now 78 and worked with Thay as a lay person in Vietnam during the war. She was training thousands of students to help rebuild villages as they were being destroyed. She set up an organization for Social Justice. She left Vietnam and went to France to join Thay when he couldn't return to Vietnam. Later she became a monastic and has been at Plum Village ever since. She later explained how they support a very poor school in the highlands of Vietnam and the calligraphy of Thay's they were selling out in the lobby where money would go to feed the children and staff there. There had been a very critical article in last Sunday's Madrid paper by a journalist who hadn't attended the retreat, only the public talk. I haven't read it but Doug and others were very upset by it. That's why Doug had set up a press conference with Thay on Weds. with one prominent BCN journalist and Doug had to get back to do the translating. The point of the critical article from what I gather is that these Buddhists are just traveling around to make a profit! I think it will end up backfiring on this journalist who didn't interview anyone in the community and got many of his facts completely wrong.
After the song Doug took the mike to thank everyone for coming (it was all in Spanish so I'm not sure what he said but he talked for maybe five minutes). Afterwards I had to wait around to get directions as to where and when I should go tomorrow for the start of the retreat so many people were crowded around him to talk. Finally I found out the info and headed off following the crowd to the metro and home. As I got off the metro I saw two women who just looked like teachers who looked lost. Sure enough, they were from Bordeaux and here for this educators retreat. I led them to our dorm. Tired!!
I can't tell you how I incredibly proud I felt of my son and the wonderful work he is doing. He's using all of the talents he's been given and developed himself through hard work, the language skills, his music, his organizational skills - who knew?, - and they are so appreciated by the people he works with. A couple of the Spanish sangha members who spoke English came up to tell me how brilliant and caring and special he was to them! I feel like this when I see Kerry in her business role or of mom role! I'm constantly amazed as I see and deal with them more as just my kids! But to see how they turned out professionally and personally is one of the joys of motherhood. I'm a very lucky mom!!!
I used to think my Mother's Day when the two of them would mess up the kitchen fixing Nana and I a wonderful MD brunch out on our deck with special strawberry drink was FANTASTIC and couldn't be topped! Now I spend most MDs treated wonderfully by my daughter, son-in-law and his wonderful cooking, and my adorable Jackson and Sarah! This MD I 'll be with Doug which hasn't happened in a VERY long time. But he doesn't forget to show his gratitude either, even if we're apart. One year I got a Mother's Day letter written on a piece of birch bark! Both sides of it! when he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail! and another time a guy, Bruce from Shelton, CT, showed up at my door with a basket of fruit, flowers, and a Mother's Day letter from Doug, whom Bruce had met in Plum Village and Doug had asked him to deliver for him! I'm a really blessed mom!!!!
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