Commentary on hookahs, smoke rings, and The Dream

We sent a HoboHookah with Ali, Jenna, Katie, Kate, and Adam to help them maintain some rep on a pretty wicked multi-country adventure. Jenna just sent us a little story. Read on:

In the chaos that is leaving for a trip right after graduating and right before “beginning the next chapter of our lives,” we absent-mindedly grabbed a plastic bag, tossed the Hobohookah in it and ran to catch our bus to O’Hare. Now, like many (most) people I know, I am not a fan of O’Hare airport. However, on this trip was born an even greater disdain when I made my acquaintance with Heathrow. A particularly unpleasant security woman told Kate that her carry-on (which contained the Hobo bag) was too large and said carry-on would need to be checked just as said carry-on’s zipper burst open. Looking at the clock and seeing that we had one hour to get through customs so Kate could check her bag, return and pass through security with enough time to find our gate, I breathed a sigh of relief. However, as we ran in bare feet from a rapidly increasing security line and approached an awe-inspiring customs line, my breath was not coming quite so easily. I fumbled putting on my shoes, yelling, “Go Kate! We only have an hour!” Now, Kate was a soccer player and from the looks of it, always will be a soccer player because that girl was dipping and diving, shimmying and shaking her way through that line, making it to the front in 6 seconds flat. Before disappearing from my view, Kate turned around giving me a worried look through the crowd. I raised my fist in the air with courageous hope, wondering what would happen to Kate, and almost as importantly, the HoboHookah.

40 minutes later I was finally getting patted down by security, grabbing shoes and bag, sprinting to our terminal, looking at the “departures” board and seeing that our plane…was not even assigned a gate yet. I see Kate hurdling a woman’s bag as she comes down the escalator, red-raced after getting mixed directions to our terminal, going through security a total of three times and thinking that she would miss our flight. “Kate! Kate! You’re good!” I scream before she kills herself flying through the air. She does a little victory jig as the Britons glare or giggle around us. All my anxiety was not gone, however, as I realized that I had never travelled with the Hobo out of my tenderly carried carry-on. Check-in baggage would be a true test of any item’s durability, especially in a broken bag that was packed as a carry-on.

Upon landing in Athens, all our baggage comes out within the first 5 minutes at the baggage carousel…all but Kate’s former carry-on. After a couple false-alarm victory jigs, we finally see it and Kate is off again, dashing through crowds, finding the fixed zipper still intact and more importantly, the Hobo looking pristine.

The first night on the cruise, we head up to the bar that already feels like home, saying hello to the bartender and waitstaff that remembered us after the first drink. We sit down, grab a cocktail and make three new friends before we’re finished setting up the Hobo. Sharing a smoke and some conversation with the fellow recent grads from California, we’re soon interrupted by an older gentleman with a curious grin, asking what we’re doing. “It’s legal!” is Ali’s auto-response followed by an actual explanation. We offer him a try, and to our surprise and delight, he takes a few puffs and makes some jokes about being high. We chat a bit before he moves on, wishing us a pleasant evening.

During a stop in Istanbul, we spent the night with some others at a local nargile (hookah, shisha) cafe called the AlibabaCafe. Drinking black tea, smoking multiple flavors of shisha and eating cherries, pistachios and crabapples…those in the group who had never seen a hookah before our Hobo were now introduced to its older, more traditional brother. A native of Istanbul who sat next to Kate had no idea that the next night he would be sitting in ‘our’ bar on the cruise ship, dancing and playing drinking games with us while singing the praises of the Hobo, asking us how he could get one and whispering that it was better than the hookahs at the nargile cafe.

That is some serious Living of the Dream, folks. HoboHookah: helping you meet sweet people all over the world. Can’t wait to get the next installment from this adventuring band.

Bonus Pic: