Woke up really tired. The smelly bed linen and stinking pillow made the mood feeling dirty. My pants and shirts smelled as bad. I am out of clean shirts, pants and underwear. Maybe today soak some of them in soap and hang to dry. We still have one more stop before returning to KL. Tashkent.
But today we would explore St Petersburg and see what is great about this ancient city. Breakfast was splendid with widespread of halal food. The raw fish ( herring I think)was delicious and strangely edible in the morning. They had self- made waffles in one corner. You had to pour the batter into a waffle maker and let it bake for three minutes .How challenging!hahaha!
The first stop was the church.
At St Petersburg mosque, we joined the Friday prayers. The prayer hall was packed with people but I found a place and sat down. I felt alive to be among the believers in a kuffar country that doesn’t want to have anything to do with Islam. I don’t speak their language but we came for one reason—- to praise Allah. And right there and then we were connected.
Afterwards, I rushed out just to find my shoes were not there. What! I didn’t believe my eyes and kept looking up and down the stairs. The damn shoes were no where to find.The mosque people were there but couldn’t help me either. I felt lost and frustrated just didn’t know what to do or where to turn to.People kept coming out the mosque and the shelves were no longer accessible to look for my shoes. I was then running around without the shoes on trying to find the group and what not. The world seemed to come crashing down on me. It was a terrible experience but in the end the mosque’s staff found them with Olga desperately describing my shoes. Alhamdulillah all is well. I got my shoes back. My skepticism that there was a thief in the mosque was entirely false.
