member of the human race

Islam expo part 2

so a continuation from the last blog....

so after leaving the Qatari guy we followed the scent of food to eat as we were starving, and even though there was quite a long line up we amazingly didn't have to wait long at all as the people serving were really fast and the chicken wraps we bought were delicious mmmmm.

after our brief encounter with food we moved to see more of the stalls and made our way towards the MAB Youth stall were to my delight my commander in chief was sat looking all nice and bless her cotton socks she had prepared a folder with previous pictures of trips we had been on and it was so cool to see them, so tanks sis, your work is appreciated.

then on we moved to the souk but before that we had to visit the toilet, us females are so funny we always have to travel in hoards to the toilet, there really is no such thing as a female who ventures alone to the toilets lol.

then on to our favorite part the souk, and what a souk, it was so cool to see the many different Muslim businesses all in one room, I didn't realise that we had business in nearly everything mashallah, from clothing, to art, holidays to all parts of the world, food, Islamic banking, charities and the list goes on.. Obviously I had to destroy something and the lucky person was the perfume guys collection, he had a table full of different oils of perfumes in these glass bottles, and from the sheer excitement of it all I leaned over to get a bottle that had caught my eye and knocked another bottle across the table and spilt its contents on the table cover which is probably stained for life now, I felt really bad so I offered the due to pay for the spillage and he said £5, which i gave to him but then he felt sorry for me so he gave me a minature bottle full of the perfume oil so i managed to get something in return aaaaaaah how nice.

also I bought a jilbab which caught my eye and the price wasn't bad either, loads to see and through out it all we kept seeing faces that we hadn't seen for yonks, seriously one of the best high lights of the day was seeing the people, it was like a reunion of some kind, for once all organizationss were there and the feeling was tremendous. one stall that caught my eye was the sporty hijab, really funny lol sisters running down the beach in a all in one suite looool, images of islamic bay watch come to mind (i know i know astaghfurrallah).

we then decided to go find some nasheed concert tickets which we were all looking forward to but when we gotto the reception we were informed that there were sold out, sniff sniff, over a thousand tickets had been given out which was good cause it meant that the numbers where confirmed but it meant we were ticketless. so instead of hanging around looking all glum we went insight of more things to see..

and we saw loads mashallah, here is ever the idealist contemplating and pondering over a historical piece..


and here i squeen nafititi and ketchup enjoying the moment aaaaaaaw ho
how sweet (mashallah of course)...


















it was time to wrap up and leave, cause we didnt have tickets to the nasheed concert, it was decide dthat we would head back to manchester early, so every one went to the car park wher ethe coaches were waiting for us, but when we got there one of the coaches had a technical problem so he said that he was going to go 10 miles down the road to service it and that he would be about 2 hours max, so th eelders decided that families and woman would go on teh functioning coach (which was my coach) and the rest of us would wait for the other one to come back, so me, ever th eidealist and maymoona stayed behind with about 32 other people, found a patch of grass and began the long waiting process for which was to become the ghost coach.

the first hour and so we entertained ourself by eating and looking at what we had bought

and ever the idealist scoffing down crips, bless her she did give me a packet...

every so often we would look to the horizon and pray that coach arrives soon but alas no coach could be seen, eventually after sitting down for some time, we decided to go back up the hill to Alaxandra palace wher eit was warmer as it was getting chilly, so we had to climb th ehill again and have pit stops for maymoona and ever the idealist as they where finding it difficult (lol), obviously it was a breeze for me (mashallah lol).

and when we finnally got up there we found to our amazment that we where allowed to go to the nasheed concert cause there where loads of places available, ugh frustrating or what, but alhamdullilah, we sat down just as preachor moss was starting his act hes one funny dude although alot of his stuff i had heard so many times before but it still sounds funny coming from him bless.

i was ever conscious of the fact that at any minute we would have to leave cause our coach was set to appear any second, but funnily enough we managed to sit through the whole programme plus pray maghrib and still no coach appeared at which point every one was leaving cause islam expo was over for the day, and us mancunians where stll looking at each others faces wondering what was to become of us, to be honest i still had hope that it was gonna turn up, we where told on numerous occasions by different security guards to leave but seriously where in the world where we supposed to go? weirdos.. by the time all the visistors had left (exculding us) the head of security decided to put us under quarintine, seriously, he allocated a section where we had to stay put and we where not allowed to step one foot out of it and any one needing the toilet had to be escorted, later theses rules where broken hee hee, but the security dude was a right idiot when we asked him why he was improsining us he said something like 'you northeners cant be trusted' what? say again? right some one hold me before i thump the dude.

all this time maymoona was talking to the coach company trying to find out what was happening to us, they were not being very helpful and actually being down right rude, what we did was try to find comfortable seating cause it was gonna be a long night, somebody started to give out cookies and coke lol, trust us muslims to carry food with us. every so often some one would make an announcement about our future, one minute it was ' the coach might be coming' or' we might have to go by national express' or ' we might have to stay the night at finsbury park mosque' to be honest i just wanted to get home, bless tahnia and lamees they waithed with us until a final descion was made, may allah always bless and protect them.

the national express idea was stupid (coach companies idea), the next coach to leave was at 12, it was like 11:30 and it takes 40 minutes to get to the staition and we would get to manchester at 7am, and the next train to leave after that one was 2am, anyway when we checked availabilities we found no seats available so ha. next option was finsbury park mosque (a brother felt the need to mention that the mosque was under new managemnt so no abu hamza supporters where there any more lol, the look on some of the folks faces lol) some of the london brothers where contacted to supply blankets and pillows for us, clearly the coach was not arriving....

some bright spark suggested that the coach company should put us up in hotels seeing how all this was there fault, it was worth a try, so we called them again and after what seemed years they agreed but we had to make our on way there, all this was after 12 midnight, so we where stuck at Alexandra Palace till after midnight, i never imagined that would ever happen to me lol. me and ever the idealist did manage to amuze oursleves by putting our hand through a fence thing to get to the sweets in the slot machines, it took us some time to figure it out but eventually we where rewarde dwith 20 pence worth of sweets wow.

and

eventually about 5 cars came to take us to the hotel, we got there sooner than i thought and we got our room keys, 2 per room so i had ever the idealist sharing with me, as soon as we got to our room i started jumping on the bed, come on it was huge and so jumpable wow

ever the idealist kinda zonked herself as soon as she hit the pillows, i had to sleep in my jilbab, cant say i have ever done that before, not very comfortable, but yeh i waited till fajer which funnioy enough was about a 2 minute wait thats how lait it was, and as soon as i put my head down on the pillow i slept like a baby, although at about 3 am ever the idelaists brother called to check if she was ok aaaaaaw bless.

next day woke up feeling better than i expected i would, although i didnt have toothpaste or toothbrush so that wasnt nice. came down to breakfast expecting cornflakes or toast, but to our amazement it was a buffet breakfast with fruits, diffrent types of bread as wel cereals, yogurts, cheeses, coffee, teat, hot chocklate, the works, maymoona opted for an english breakfast without the sausage or bacon

eventually the coach came and you couldnt stop us from getting onto that coach, what was funny was that it was the same driver, and even more hilarous was that the coach company had called us to ask if we could be nice to the driver as he is scare dthat we might shout at him for abanding us lol, of course we werent gonna eat him or anything we where just gonna outstare him, no but seriously we were nice and when we finnaly got to manchester he thanked us for our patience and then apologised.

by the time i got him i thanked Allah that we had arrived safley and that the adventure was over for now that is....