Reflections

Now that I am back in the states, there are a lot of comparisons to be made with the London life. First of all, I forgot to mention this earlier, majority of people in London smoke. It's especially bad in Oxford Street. I was walking and I saw a hijabi (at least I think she was) smoking! I was appalled. I was quite happy coming back with everybody driving on the right side of the road. In London, we saw one person driving on the American side. It must take a lot of skill to do that. I still cannot get over the amount of Muslims there. There are so many Muslims to the point where people don't even bother to say salaam. In Pennsylvania, people go nuts when they see another Muslim.
So, on the plane ride back we were upgraded to World Traveler Plus and there was an obvious difference. The seats had foot stools, there was a phone attached to the arm rests, the food was a lot better, and the bathrooms were a lot better. I was pretty happy. I am glad to be back, but miss having my grandparents around. I missed my TV though. I think it was a very successful trip and enjoyed my first transatlantic trip! Thanks for tuning in to my blog!

London Day 5: Classic Red Bus Tour

I decided to do my blog post for today earlier. Today was our last full day in London. My mom and I went on a tour of London called the “Classic Red Bus Tour.” We were able to see everything we missed. However, instead of a red bus, we had a green Harrods bus. I personally preferred the Harrods bus. We first sat on the top, but my mom was really cold, so we went down. The tour guide was a little rude to us non-Brits. Apparently people from North America “do not speak proper English and drive on the wrong side of the world.” We saw all the palaces including the Buckingham palace, but I’ll talk about that later. The guy spewed out so many names, I couldn’t remember all of them. We also went on a cruise on the Thames River. We saw the Millennium Bridge, which was featured in one of the Harry Potter movies. I kind of freaked out. Before the cruise we went to West Minister Abbey where William and Kate got married. We weren’t able to go in, but able to see it from the outside. The last place we went to on the tour was Buckingham Palace. It’s gorgeous outside. I was quite in awe, realizing the fact that this is where William and Kate had their kiss and came after they got married. I was seeing what I saw on TV.

Millennium Bridge

Afterwards we went to the London Eye. My mom was really nervous to go on originally, but I convinced her otherwise. One rotation around it takes half an hour. You are able to have amazing views of all of London. Afterwards, we went to a waffle place that the lovely Yomna recommended. Let me just tell you, they were amazing. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water. We then went to Maroush, an amazing Labanese restaurant, with my grandparents. We stuffed ourselves and it was quite delicious.

            Through this trip, my mom and I were able to spend a very good time with each other, I was able to catch up with my grandparents, and I was able to experience another culture. I had an amazing time in this trip, especially with the shopping! I forgot to add the fact that the weather in London majority of the week was really good, but today it was a little chilly.

London Day 4

Today was quite an interesting day. First, we went to the British Museum where there was a Hajj exhibit. Something unique about London is that all Museums are free. You just have to pay for special exhibits. Going back to the museum, it was really nice. Even if someone already went to Hajj, there was a lot to be seen (my grandparents who live in Saudi Arabia would beg to differ). They had artifacts from ancient Mecca that showed travel routes that people used to take, how they would find the Qibla (the direction of the Ka’ba), among others. The thing that I found most interesting was the fact that they had pieces of old kiswas (coverings of the Ka’ba) in the exhibit. I don’t think I would have been able to see it that up close if it weren’t for this exhibit. At the end there was a video of people making Hajj that really made me want to go and make Umrah/Hajj. After that, we saw the Egyptian mummy exhibit, the Sudan/Egypt/Nubia exhibit, and then the Islamic exhibit. I was only able to take pictures in those exhibits, but I took tons.

Trafalgar Square

Piccadilly

My grandparents left in the middle of our museum time, so my mom and I toured London on our own. We went to Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly, and the M&M store. Now let me tell you about this M&M store. It is a huge store filled with just M&M products. As I mentioned before, there are a lot of Muslims and Arabs in London. A lot of people from the Gulf come and visit. This means that the people of London need to cater to them. They have all directions written in Arabic. There was one sign that had English, Arabic, Chinese (or Japanese), and Spanish. There was no French. We went to go check out and I had M&Ms that were red in the package. The sales person, who is not Muslim, said that the red M&Ms are not halal (permissible for Muslims because it probably has pork).  She went and changed the package so that there were no haram (forbidden) M&Ms. Apparently; the red, pink, and maroon ones are not halal. My mom and I were quite impressed. There seems to be more of an acceptance and liking for Muslims in London. After that we were supposed to go to Hyde Park, but it started to rain so we went to Harrods again instead. We love that store. Afterwards we went on a walk that lead us to a cemetery- the first time I went into a cemetery I might add. The headstones were all intricately done and I enjoyed looking at them (that might sound weird, but whatever. It was really nice mother-daughter time for my mom and I. All in all, it was a wonderful day.

London Day 3: Harrods and Tea

Selfridge

Today was our last official day of shopping. We went to more expensive places, so we didn't buy as much. Funny enough, we went to Top Shop AGAIN. We actually went to Mrs. Selfridge inside, but that doesn't count. Before we went to Harrods we went to Selfridge and Debenhams. Selfridge compares to Neimann Marcus in the States- a very expensive store that you go to just to look. Turns out London is a lot more expensive than the U.S. You can buy the same thing in the U.S. for almost half the price. For example, you can buy a medium-sized Chanel bag for a little over a thousand dollars. You get a smaller sized Chanel bag for the same amount of pounds. Even UGGs are a lot more expensive. The tall boots are around $180, but in the U.K. they are 210 pounds - that explains why it isn’t as common here. Debenhams compares to Lord and Taylor and Macy’s- not that spectacular.

Harrods is another store. First of all: it’s huge. Second of all: it’s very classy (that means it’s expensive). They have every brand name you can think of from all around the world. Chanel, Valentino, Pucci, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and much more. It was heaven for me. Unfortunately, those are all out of my price range. However, I wanted to leave with just one thing. I kind of lost hope after the first floor, but my mom ended up finding stuff for my grandmother that were not too expensive. This gave me hope and my mom didn’t want to leave without finding me a nice outfit (my mom is amazing). We went to the youth section and we found sales and things that were affordable. I went nuts. This one sales woman was so helpful and I was able to find an outfit that could pass for Chanel: a jacket and a matching dress. My mom found a gorgeous skirt and matching cardigan that she will be getting tomorrow. After our shopping endeavors, I went to the gift shop that had everything you could think of when it came to Harrods memorabilia. I bought a few things and was quite content. Afterwards, we went to The Tea House. There they serve tea and “tea fancies” (little cakes and such that you can get with your tea that you may “fancy”). Let me just add that at least 80% of the people there were Arabs from the Gulf. It was so nice to see all these covered women wearing scarfs and speaking Arabic. Turns out there was actually the Saudi royal family in The Tea House (I was sitting in a place of royalty!). I had so much fun at Harrods and had quite a wonderful day!

London Day 2: Shopping and Family

Today was an amazing day. I had sooo much fun! It feels so good to be in that family atmosphere and absorbing another culture. I still cannot get over their accent. Sometimes, however, it takes me a little to understand what they are saying. However, out of all of us I understand what they are saying best. I guess all those hours watching Harry Potter and Pride and Prejudice have helped. Their style is like no other. Yesterday I forgot to mention the fact that there are a lot of smokers in London, especially on Oxford Street. See, Oxford Street is a lot like New York, but there seems to be a lot more people. I was telling my mom that I have enough second-hand smoke to last a lifetime.

Now, to talk about the stores. As I said, their style is amazing. The clothes here is a lot more sophisticated and chic. It's more of an upper class. The clothes that people wear just to go shopping is phenomenal. Sometimes I feel embarrassed by what I am wearing and that's something big for me to say. There's this store called Primark that sells really nice stuff (similar to Forever 21) for really good prices. And then there's this other store called Top Shop (thanks to Yomna) that sells amazing stuff (I got this really cute white leather jacket) and then inside of it is a store called Mrs. Selfridge where I got a dress and a shirt (it is connected to this department store called Selfridge, but is for younger people). They have a vintage section that has only one of each piece. I found this one yellow dress that was gorgeous and I tried it on (understand the fact that these are sample sizes). It literally just fit, but I could barely breath (it was so cute, though). It really saddened me to leave it there, but I took a picture with it on. When I was at this store there was this Muslim women who was talking to one of the employees there. She seemed somewhat frantic and in a rush. She needed a tight fitting shirt (that all Muslim women need in their closet) and was wondering if they sold any. I had sad salaam to her and was listening to what she was saying. By chance, there was a sale going on at Primark selling tight-fitted shirts in various colors from 1-4 pounds (a really good deal, even less then what you can buy them for from here). I told here that there were some at Primark and she said, "May Allah bless you." She was so happy and I was so happy to help her. I can't forget that. It's amazing how a religion can bring people in need together.


When I went to London, there were two things that I wanted: a legit London trench coat and these shoes that I see everyone in London wearing. It compares to UGGs in America. The shoes that they wear here in general are incredible and I actually took a picture of the shoes this one women was wearing. To get to the point I went to this store called Zara on Chelsea that has amazing stuff for pretty good prices and I found a really cute trench coat! I ended up buying it and my mom bought this really nice flyaway pants. I also ended up finding the shoes I wanted in this Italian store, but they didn't have my size so I kept looking. Surprisingly enough, I found the shoes I like at Clark's. It seems like they carry different stuff than America. I bought the same pair of shoes in two different colors. I was pretty happy with my purchases.

On another note, we went to an Arab restaurant today that had really good food and I had a shawarma plate for the first time- a really good one I might add. It was so nice spending time with my family and having jokes with them. I don't think I laughed that much in a day in a while. They kept on making fun of me of how I kept taking pictures of little things that were different than they are in America (I took a picture of a label on a juice bottle because they have a different format of nutrition facts). I am really enjoying myself and tomorrow we are going to Harrods and two other department stores!!

London: Day 1

First coming to London, a few things popped out to me: they drive on the wrong side of the road, there are a LOT of Arabs and Muslims, and sunglasses are a very big deal. It just seems so much cooler in London. The airport is huge. They have metros in the airport that go crazy fast. It doesn't seem like you are in an airport. The biggest thing, however, is the accent. I am obsessed with the British accent. I mean, who doesn't like it? The shopping is even more amazing and I haven't even seen it all. I have seen a little bit of Oxford Street where I did a little shopping and then there's this street near where we are staying (Chelsea). There are so many cultures here and you can hear about every language of the world. There are so many French places and I am obsessing because it's like I am in France, but not. The cabs are so nice over here. They have more space in there and it has more of a family feel to it.

Speaking of family, it has been so nice catching up with my grandparents who I haven't seen in four years. They make fun of my Arabic, which is only expected, and I make fun of their English. 

Videos of My Journey

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTsuqUAZEq4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbCTDE6tIag