After falling asleep on the couch last night, I was up at 3am. I freshened up and got ready to go to the haram. Alhamdulillah, I reached the haram quickly and found space on the mataaf.

I sat on the mataaf until fajr where Sheikh Maher blessed us with a recitation again. We were told that the hateem is open for women after fajr but after waiting for about an hour, they let us know that it wouldn’t be opening. The hateem is usually open after Fajr and after Esha for women.

After this, the plan was to leave my stuff in the room and go down for breakfast but instead I went straight to sleep. I was super sad about missing breakfast because all I wanted was my French toast.

I woke up and had enough time to shower and read salaah before lunch. We had the best butter chicken from an aunty and the best part was that it had cut green chillies and so it was super spicy.

After this, I took a walk to Abraj-al-Bait and visited a few stores before going back to our hotel. After the walk in the heat, we got some Baskin Robbins and that made me super happy.

We chilled for a bit in the room and then set off for maghrib in the haram. We were a bit late so we ended up sitting on the first floor but alhamdulillah, we had a view of the Ka’bah again.

After maghrib, we went down to the mataaf and spent some time looking at the Ka’bah before going back to the room.

We had some surprise visitors tonight! Next thing I knew, my mamajee and aunty were walking through the door with some Al-Baik. We were super excited to see them and the nuggets they brought slapped so hard.

After this we freshened up and got ready to go to Masjid-ul-Aaisha. The taxi driver managed to fit fifteen of us in an H1. We made our umrah intention at the masjid and the drive back echoed with Labbaik Allahumma Labbaik.

We met up with my mamajee and aunty and made our way to the haram. The crowds were surprisingly big and the tawaaf took about thirty five minutes to do. It was quite hot but that first drop of zam zam after tawaaf hits hard.

We made our way to make Sa’ee on the first floor. It was much cooler than the ground floor and took about one hour and forty five minutes. We had to walk through the first floor tawaaf to get to King Fahd gate. We found some zam zam in one of the fountains (most of them are closed) and it tasted a bit different than the one in the containers (perhaps it was pumped directly from the well?).

After a short walk to the haram, we got our hair snipped and had some karak before going back to the haram. I spent some time on the mataaf waiting for Sheikh Maher’s fajr. It was a power Fajr as Maher read Surah Waaqiah.

After having some essential zam zam, I walked back to the hotel for breakfast. Today there was a falafel schwarma station and it was so good. Of course, I had some French toast. After breakfast, I went straight to sleep.

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