Oh yes, I almost forgot.
The meditation (at the Buddhist priory), was stopped after a long half hour by loud bells and then the allergic monk, played a harmonium or some other strange instrument (I didn't see it, since like everyone else I was staring at the dark wall), and the people, all of them white, in this multi-ethnic community, chanted some gibberish, which, I thought, none understood, if there was anything to understand. So that was my first and last experience with meditating on nothing. I was dragged to go there and never had a reason to go back or practice whatever I learned that evening.
You're a great story teller, lol! Good that you didn't go back. It's a very bad practice.