Seaside getaway and the mind of Dalí

---

18-19 February

I took a few days off between Vipassana courses to go up the coast to Cadaques and Figueres, both long time haunts of Salvador Dalí. Cadaques is a beautiful little white-washed town right on the water. It was the middle of the week and very quiet - a perfect place to relax for a few days before starting to cook for 60 people again. It was wonderful to just walk through the narrow streets, along the water, and to the neighboring little town that had a small Dalí museum.

On the way back I stopped in Figueres, which has the Teatro-Museo Dalí - a huge civic museum that burned down and was restored by Dalí in a surreal manner that only he was capable of. He has so many paintings, sculptures, furniture, and holographic works that look like one thing and then the longer you look at it changes into something completely different - the perfect type of art to see after 10 days of meditatig and observing change! The perfect example is his ¨Gaya Looking at the Sea¨, which is a huge painting that, when viewed from one angle or distance, is a painting of his naked wife looking out a window but, when looked at from a different angle, is a perfect picture of Araham Lincoln. Who in the world would think of something like that, much less have the talent to pull it off? But each rendering is perfectly and skillfully executed, and there are other paintings in the museum that show that when he wanted to draw or paint in the classical style, Dalí could illustrate the human body just as well as the best painters in the world. But it´s his humor that won me over. There is so much great art in the world, but it´s the art that makes me smile and laugh as I leave the room that really wins me over.

After another coffee or two (no coffee at the center!), I headed back to the Vipassana center to get back to work.

---