After our 5 hour long journey we finally made it to Makkah! We arrived late that night but it was so hustle and bustle apart from the night sky you wouldn't have known it was dark out!
We stayed at one of the hotels inside the clocktower. It was a nice landmark, whenever we ventured out to explore around Makkah we would look up and head towards clocktower if we were ever lost. It also gave the current time and the azan would bellow across the city so you could hear it no matter where you were, inside or out. The hotel lobby was filled with the smell of bakhour. It smelled absoutely amazing. That view was from our hotel room, we also prayed there the most. Although we couldn't see the Kabah it was one of our favorite places to pray, not only because not many people ventured onto the rooftop but it was so serene and peaceful.
The lobby of the hotel we were staying at changed their flowers every few days.
This was the first view of the Kabah, it was gorgeous and beautiful and oh so amazing. This is my fourth time performing Umrah but I have to say each time you lay eyes on the Kabah you can't help but feel immense joy and happiness. I appreciate it's beauty more and more each time I come to Saudi Arabia.
I tried to take as many pictures with Ammie and my khalas as I could! Drinking zamzam water, walking 10-20k steps a day and being able to pray before the Kabah was just magical and I felt like we were all just radiating! We had a similar schedule to the one we had in Medina, wake up, pray Fajr, eat breakfast, take a nap, pray Zuhr, explore, pray Asr, shop, pray Maghrib, explore, pray Isha, go to sleep!
I was the photographer of this trip and took quite a few pics of Ammie and her sisters but Ammie made sure to take a few of me too! I wore socks with my slippers. One tip is to definitely make sure you have socks and comfortable slippers! As much as the workers around here sweeped and mopped the floor, visitors would trash the place and leave litter (it made me so mad) but your feet would get sticky and dirty, socks kept your feet clean and warm. I brought a lot of old socks so if they got ruined I could easily toss them in the bin.
I have an extra shawl wrapped around me because I was helping my Khala hold her purse (she would put everyones slippers in a plastic bag inside her cloth purse/bag but walking was difficult for her and carrying a heavy bag (we also put our prayer rugs in there and bottles of zamzam water) so I would carry it for her but she worried someone would steal something from there as we were performing Umrah/Tawaf so I wrapped my shawl around her bag and my purse. It also kept me warm! We tried to stick together, sometimes I'd lose Ammie or my Khalas but we would always meet back up when walking back to the hotel.
To be able to perform Umrah three times like we did we first had to leave the area. We would take a short bus trip down to Al Taneem, Masjid E- Ayesha. It's a beautiful mosque and one home to several kitties!
You can see just how ecstatic I am to find a cat sleeping inside the Masjid. Outside of the mosque I found even more cats and kittens hanging out. They were so cute! I wanted to take them all home.
While shopping around we came across this coffee shop called Jeffries! I found it hilarious because Jeffrey and his family own a donut shop. I told him he's in the coffee/breakfast business overseas too! Haha.
This is an interesting photo! The skies looked different on this day and a few hours after I took this picture a swarm of locusts appeared! They were huge hopping/flying cricket looking grasshoppers. I have to say the workers did a fabulous job of picking them up and sweeping them away. They were so big a lot of women (myself included) did not fancy them sitting on us while we prayed.
Ammie and my Khalas have relatives in Saudi Arabia, in Jeddah so he came to pick us up and take us for some shopping and exploring. We saw camels on the side of the road! They were so cute and were in all different colors. I even saw an Albino one! My cousin told us they belong to a herder.
I have to say Pistachio is my favorite flavor. Pistachio ice cream, pistachio donuts, pistachio coffee, pistachio smoothies. Anything and everything in that flavor is the best! It's too bad you can't find it as common in the United States, specially not in Missouri. I also picked up different snacks from the market they were so good I should have gotten more! I feel like snacks overseas are the perfect consistency of sweet and salty. In the United States everything is so coated with sugar, fried in sugar, baked and glazed in sugar it honestly is too much.
Insh'Allah can't wait to visit next time!
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