For the people that know me well, you’ll know that I enjoy my sleep A LOT (Enjoy being an understatement). It’s not changed since I’ve been in Pakistan. Infact, if anything I probably sleep more, but this time I have an excuse, the weather, which is better than my normal one, which was pure lazyness. With the weather being so hot at times, it drains your energy, its like the type of hotness which sticks to you… Sabi said to me on msn today, that its the worst kind! lol So on sunday, I had a siesta for the first time ever and buzzed off it! For those of you who dont know what a siesta is it’s ‘an afternoon nap, taken in hot countries’. Learn a new thing everyday.

After I woke up, my mum told me that we were invited to my great uncles best friends Farm House. They’ve been friends for 59 years, such a long time. Makes me wonder if i’ll be friends with any of you guys reading this blog for that long. Anyways, you know your in Pakistan when you have flies annoying you, I think I’ve worked out the secret in stopping the same fly coming back constantly. You have to just leave it be however annoying it gets until it leaves itself, because if you don’t it seems as soon as I start having a fight with the fly, it calls his whole family (plus extended family and friends) to annoy me, and they wont leave either. Or just maybe I attract flies 8 -) Jus kiddin lol lets hope not!

Anyhow, I’ve drifted off again.. 12 of us got ready to leave to the Farm House at about 7PM, my mum had told me when I woke up that my great uncle said that they had a swimming pool. I was like, a swimming pool at someones place in Pakistan, especially a Farm House.. I don’t think so! It’s probably a swimming pool for the cows and other animals. So with my frame of mind, when I heard it was a Farm House, I just thought…

1. Its going to smell BAD
2. It will be boring
3. Flies everywhere, to haunt me!

 So we left and as we got closer the smell got worse… BUT once we actually got into the Farm House and past all the animals.. it was a shock! I actually couldn’t believe my eyes, I thought this cant be in Pakistan. I will upload the pictures I took on my phone, once I get my older sis to bring the cable, in just over 2 weeks. It was stunning..! And there was a big swimming pool… I had a swim for over an hour.. Can’t beat it, especially when the weathers warm and the waters cold. The electricity was off… but as it got dark.. the electricity come back on at 10PM and suddenly it all just lit up… all the lights around the garden I didnt realise were there! We stayed there till late and then come home =)

On tuesday, my dad took everyone out for a meal at a restaurant, which was pretty good! Oh and also MANGO ICE CREAM…mmmm! Delicious..

Nothing much more to say at the moment.. Im going to Sahiwal tomorrow (Thursday) morning at 10AM. It’s where my mum’s brother and sisters are so Inshallah once we get there safe and sound should be good! I made a lot of friends there last time too… so will be good to catch up with them! Pic’s will be uploaded asap!

Apologies if the post bored you guys yet again! =P Hope everyone is keeping well, smiling and enjoying there summer holidays! Also congrats to the people who passed there year at uni, if they didn’t then try not to be down, chin up and try again next year!

Zahid

Here I am, writing my first blog from Faislabad, Pakistan on what feels like a Pentium -2 computer with the slowest Internet connection speed ever! It will do as it lets me keep you guys up to date with my trip

I couldn’t sleep the night before leaving for Pakistan so I stayed up all night talking to a friend (if you read this, thanks for keeping me company, legend!) We left Stafford at 11AM to Manchester Airport, parents dropped me and little sister (Nabiha) there with the luggage, whilst they went to Stockport to pick the rest of the luggage at relatives place and met us at Airport. We did the whole check’ing in, boarding etc, waited in the boarding area for about over an hour. Advice for the people that don’t already know, too many Pakistani’s in one place can only mean trouble

Okay, so just now the electricity went off in Faislabad for an hour due to load shedding so I’ve come back to my great uncles house *Correct me if I’m wrong? I think my dad’s dad’s brother is classed as my great uncle? Im not good when it comes to the whole relations thing..* Anyway I thought i’d continue writing in a notebook *jaan kay… what the movie!* and write type it up when I go back at 9PM. Swiftly getting back to the point of this blog post lol.. you might be thinking what I meant by the whole pakistani’s being together. Everyones at the boarding gate and the airport staff guy who btw *sounded like a girl, sorry if you ‘happen’  to read this but.. truth hurts?* He said specifically that they were going to be boarding everyone by seat row number, so as expected all the paki’s got up and started queueing before any seat row number was even called. Why they were queueing..don’t ask, I still have no idea. So we were delayed by our own (pakistani’s) people for a good hour, no patience whatsoever! Ah well, it didn’t really bother me too much as me and my family were just relaxing and laughing at how silly the people are… sounds mean but its true!

Once we finally got on the plane we had to wait another 45 minutes because all the luggage wasn’t put in. That’s PIA for you.. (PIA – Pakistan International Airlines). We finally got on the plane and left off, the stewardesses were going up and down the aisles offering newspapers, I thought I might as well try be clever and read up on the news to then find it was Lahore newspaper lol! I opened it up and saw that it was like twice he length of our newspapers and also impossible to read without knocking out the passengers sat next to you. Found it quite funny, pretty sure you guys don’t think so But you had to be there :$

I then found that the tv remote control had a phone on the other side and you could make calls to other seats, so I worked out how to use it and got my dad to put her phone on and surprise called my mum, was pretty cool! I was sitting next to a 12 year old kid on the plane, I didn’t realise, but he saw how I called my mum and then got his remote thing and called me after lol. What a guy..! *Well thats what I thought at the time* He then kept calling me so it got annoying as I saw this *Picture..to be uploaded* on my tv screen constantly. He knew Amir Khan tho.. or so he said as he was from Bolton. Yeh, thats right I made a 12 year old friend.. and what?! lol

I started to listen to my music and started to think of everyone I’m going to miss! Ek Kuri – Sukhshinda Shinda *Don’t know how you spell his name* came on and thought of Mohsin since he introduced the song to me, Brilliant track! Then the tunes Sainu sent tunes started, was wondering what Sainu was upto? I was literally playing solitare on the tv whilst we were speeding up the runway and listening to Breathless!

So it’s been 4 and a half hours on the plane, was feeling little ‘low’ as they say but THEN such a cute 2 year old.. (the 12 year old – Adeel’s lil brother) sat on his bro’s lap and kept looking and pointing at my watch and saying “Clock, Tick Tock” he even made a song out of it, Oh and he’d keeping asking for bubble gum from his bro and just repeatedly say “Bubleee” ..Haha!

The plan was to sleep, but it was soo cold and there was no stewardesses about, finally I asked one and she got me a blanket. Everyone nearby saw that she got me a blanket and started to ask for one too.. The stewardess gave me a strange look – probably as if to say look what you’ve got me doing now! =/ lol! Oh well, It’s her job right, she gets paid for giving people blankets.. I wouldn’t complain.

Anyways…I finally got to sleep then.. before I knew it we got to Lahore! The pilot had made up 45 minutes during the flight. We got to Lahore at like 5:30am, got our luggage and waited for my cousins Salman bhai and Wahab Bhai to come from Sahiwal in a van to take most of our luggage there. Whilst we were waiting for them to come.. we were waiting outside and like in an hour at least 15 people come up to my dad asking if they wanted to book a taxi with them or needed help with luggage. We said, No as we were waiting for my cousins. Anyways, there was this one guy who stayed and started talking to my dad.. I realised he was secretly just wanting money.. but my dad didn’t realise and thought he was being friendly. When my cousins finally came, Wahab bhai grabbed a trolley, me and my dad took one.. well took it a whole metre before the random guys grabbed it off me and my dad.. said they’d take it to the van! My cousin fought them off the trolley he had. Anyway as expected they put the luggage in the van and then asked for money.. my cousin was like “Who told you to take the trolleys like a whole 150 metres and put luggage in the van, we didn’t ask you”, He gave them some money, they wanted Pounds (There isn’t a pound sign on the keyboard) not Ruppees.

Cousins got the driver of the van to take us ‘Daewoo Coach Station’ where we got a coach to Faislabad in two hours, I slept all throughout the journey. There we are, we were in Faislabad, in the boiling HOT weather.

I will update you guys tomorrow or the next day I apologise the post ended up coming out a lot longer than I thought it would.. Hope it’d didnt bore you too much! Comment if you want

Zahid