Properly back home

Salam all

I know I’ve been back for almost 3 weeks now *I think* … I thought I’d better get a post up! Coming back from SL/Umrah meant a week of rest for me and then I just got plain lazy, and there’s also the whole thing with sorting out the new school and looking for clothes for 6th form. Click on the link below for my Umrah update =)

Which reminds me- if anyone knows a place where I can get decent *cheap* good quality *cheap* shirts from, give me a heads up

Umrah was absolutely amazing … I’m still dreaming about Makkah every night!!! We were only in Medina and Makkah for a total of 7 days but seriously it felt like a lifetime- we were in Sri Lanka for the same amount of time, but just a day after we left Sri Lanka for Medina it felt like a lifetime ago…

From the second we left SL, things started happening! We were meant to be flying to Medina via Jeddah, but it turned out we weren’t transit passengers etc… basically without boring you with the details we were ehm … lost. Our flight was delayed by one and a half hours and we found out that we had to go through passport control and all the rest, collect our baggage, find the domestic terminal and check into another flight in the space of around an hour. And of course being asian we had some 5 suitcases .

Alhamdulillah, we met the most amazing guy at departures in SL- he sat with us through the flight, and taught us so much about Hajj, Umrah and Makkah. Without going into masses of details he totally saved our trip to Medina, alhamdulillah. And when we came back to Makkah he was so hospitable, meeting with us and showing us all around the Harem and Makkah, even taking us into his home and driving us to Jeddah airport when we finally left… SubhanAllah, his hospitality really made the whole trip extra extra special, and it really restored my faith in the Ummah as a whole… living here especially, you sometimes forget that people like that with mashaAllah such good hearts really exist, especially considering that this was someone you met by chance on an escalator

Mount Uhud

Medina was really beautiful and just peaceful… the feeling there is so surreal and strange, in a good way… there really aren’t words to describe it but you just feel at ease and at peace, like you’re visiting an old friend. Makkah is a lot more commercialised, but once you get into the Harem it’s like your local masjid with a twist … it sounds so cliché but it really is true- it’s like going home. Only everyone’s so happy and they’re all smiling and again with the cheesy, but everyone’s so equal! The cleaners who look like smurfs always smile and give salam to you and always take you places with joy if you ask them how to get somewhere.

I can’t really think of much else rantage right now so I will leave you with some picatures