exploring the old city

i woke up before 4 am to the sound of something like the adhan. i kept hearing phrases starting with 'subhan....' for like 1/2 an hour and THEN the adhan came on. i went down to the lobby to study and email and went back up around 7 am. i called the airport again close to 8 am but nobody picked up. kyla and i headed out to explore the city even though most of the shops were closed. we were wide awake and didn't want to sit in our room. after exiting our dorm, we walked by our school. there was a truck in front of the school and a man standing outside with his cell phone. i happened to look in the truck and saw a sweet sight...my suitcase!!! i screamed with joy! the man got scared and almost dropped his phone. i told him the suitcase was mine. after showing him the paper work, kyla and i had to carry it up the mountain. oh my goodness! we had to take a break to catch our breaths. and by the time we got to our room, we were hyperventilating. now that i had all my stuff, i was so happy. after cleaning up, we went out and by this time most of the shops were open. we walked around getting lost and exploring places. we had breakfast at that joint abdur razzaq told us about the day before. there were only men sitting in the restaurant. the place reminded me of a cab joint you'd find on devon in chicago. anyway, we sat down. there was no menu. one of the men (maybe the owner) approached us and verbally told us what they serve in english....ful (fava beans), fasoolia (white beans), liver, eggs, kidney. i heard and read that fasoolia was good so we ordered two servings of fasoolia and eggs. it was served with a freshly baked flat bread kinda like a thin parata. it was all very tasty. kyla asked for tea for herself but they also brought me one. it was actually pretty good...with cinnamon, cardamon and cloves. the total cost for both of us came out to less than $2.00. and the amount of food we ordered was a lot too.
afterwards, we continued to explore and stumbled upon a nice looking minaret and i took a few pictures. a lady in niqab said something to us. i thought she was scolding us for taking pictures but she was actually asking if we wanted to enter the masjid and take pictures. women do not pray in the masjids and non-muslims are not allowed to enter the masjids. there's only like 1 masjid in the old city of sana'a that women can pray in. anyway, so this woman who's name was altaf took us into the alamia masjid. her father, latf ahmad was the caretaker. they were so nice to us. i asked latf if the masjid was a zaydi masjid and he said all the masjids in sana'a were zaydi. the adhan is a bit different than what we're used to hearing 'cause they add an extra line in the middle. i asked him if we could climb the minaret and he said we could. it was very dark, narrow and dusty but a cool experience. by the time we got down, our black jilbabs were covered with dust. both latf and altaf wanted us to have lunch with them but we declined because we had just eaten breakfast. they gave us their contact info in case we needed anything. the nice thing about latf was that he never asked for a tip or donation. when i was in egypt, anytime i asked to climb a minaret, i had to give a tip and/or donation and even when i gave something, they'd ask for more. here it wasn't like that.
we explored some more and met nice people. it was almost time for juma'a so we just came back to the dorm to pray and rest. we went out again in the evening to buy stuff. we were trying to find a place to eat but couldn't really. we turned into an alley and found this small joint. i asked if they had falafel and the guy said yes. but then he put cheese on bread and gave it to us. no falafel. so i didn't wanna just eat cheese and bread again like the night before so i went to a little shop and asked for chips. the man said he did not have any. but then i pointed to the 3 shelves full of lays chips so he gave me one. i asked what they called it in arabic and he said, 'lays'.