Hooked on Hookah?

Lars and I visited Ahmed's apartment last weekend and had an awesome Arabic lunch with almost all of my best buds from school: Jean Claude, Laith, Ijhad, an older Iraqi whose name I seriously can never remember (I tend to refer to him as the guy that just had appendicitis) and of course Ahmed. We ate bariany, a typical Arabic food. It was a lot of rice, chicken, peas, boiled eggs, sauces and spices...pretty darn good--and SO much food. I didn't even come close to finishing my plate!

After lunch, Ahmed served some tea and coffee and some women's arms for dessert. Of course, he didn't actually serve real woman's arms! The pastry shown below is apparently called that in Arabic. No one really knew why, although we had a pretty good timing fabricating potential origins. Apparently women's arms are flaky, warm in the middle and sprinkled with pistachio crumbs on top!

We also smoked some hookah after lunch.

Ok STOP right now all of you who don't know what a hookah is and let me explain. It is by no means illegal and it has nothing to do with drugs (well it can have something to do with drugs, but it didn't this day, and it doesn't when it comes to these friends)! A hookah is an Indian water pipe (vannpipe på norsk) that is very common and cultural in the Middle East. It can be used for smoking marijuana (again, I repeat: we didn't do that), herbal fruits or tobacco. We smoked some lemon-mint business and it was actually nothing like what I expected smoking to be like...it was actually quite pleasant...but don't worry I am no where near being hooked on hookah and generally look down on smokers in general (mostly joking).

(Laith and Ijhad)

(Jean Claude)

Hookah smoking is very popular in Spain as well, and when I lived there in 2006 I was absolutely set against it. I had no desire to try; I didn't know what they hell it was, what was going into it or if I could trust the hookah bars that offer various fruits and tobaccos for relatively decent prices (I ate their delicious crêpes instead). So I never tried. Basically I was scared of it, and still was fairly skeptical this day as well. However, I was in trusted company and thought I might as well try.

After more research I decided I would never, ever do it again (ok maybe not never ever, but I am certainly not making a habit of smoking). Despite rumors, smoking hookah is not healthier than cigarettes and can arguably be worse (since you inhale a lot more smoke). Of course, if you are not smoking tobacco I suppose that is a whole 'nother ball game.

(Ahmed)

Well ladies and gents, one fear faced, one 'I've never' checked off the list. I survived. And why the heck not try anyway? Life is short.