That sounds pretty awesome actually. Apart from the exercise/socialising what was the main activity you did in the monastery? I'm assuming its something religious/faith based?
Whether it's religious or faith based is a kind of tricky question because it's a "Zen Buddhist" place (in rural Sweden, as it happens).
To make a long story short I'd say yeah, basically you spend the time eating, working, praying, and sleeping, except that the "praying" doesn't have a content except for something like "realizing that awareness is already inherently clear and ready", or just abiding in awake alertness without "complaining", or something like that.
There's also chanting which is more explicitly religious, but I interpret this whole religious business as being basically just memetic strategies that use this aesthetically coherent gestalt to reinforce some hard-to-describe point.
Image google for "zazen" and that's basically what's going on for hours every day, during meditation retreats many hours every day (with breaks every 30 minutes or so so your knees don't implode).
