Karissa's European Adventure: Drinks, Macedonian and Shishas...

Hey everyone,

So Steven was back in London after travelling around and attending huge festivals in France and Germany and was staying in Shepherd's bush which was really close to Rachael's house. We all wanted to catch up and I suggested the pub just around the corner from Rachael as I had walked past it many times after visiting her and I said she should make it her local! We all walked in and realised that the pub was quite small and must have been split up into different sections. We ordered some drinks and sat amongst some locals who were watching the football (Soccer) and caught up on what had been happening on our travels. We decided to move next door as we thought that was where we could here live music coming from and realised that the building which we thought was a pub was actually split into three separate sections 1.British Pub 2. Macedonian Restaurant and 3. Iranian Restaurant/Shisha bar which was so cool!

We decided to have dinner at the Macedonian Restaurant as we had never tried it before and the menu was quite cheap. The had a Macedonian singer who was really, really good singing to the restaurant and then he was joined by two other men that played the keyboard and a clarinet. The music kind of reminded me of a snake charmer and I loved listening to this music for the first time while we were eating. I ordered a mixed grill which was lots of different types of meat which were coated and mixed with a variety of herbs and spices along with chips coated with feta. Mine was delicious and Rachael and Steven really enjoyed their meals too! We were so full and after drinking another bottle of wine we decided we wanted to go into the last section of the building which was the Iranian Shisha Bar.

We walked in and where surprised to find a really nice beer garden style area where lots of people were smoking shishas and relaxing. We felt a little out of place as we were the only non Iranian people in the establishment but that's what kind of made it fun. We ordered a shisha each as they were quite cheap and we wanted to try lots of different flavours. I had coconut, Rachael had watermelon and Steven had an apple shisha. If you have never had a shisha/hookah here is a little information as many people think it is like smoking a bong and is illegal which is not the case at all lol-

A hookah also known as a waterpipe, narghile, or Qalyān (Gujarati હૂકાહ),(Persian قلیان), is a single or multi-stemmed instrument for smoking flavoured tobacco called Mu‘assel (also known as Shisha شیشه) in which the smoke is passed through a water basin (often glass based) before inhalation. The origin of the hookah is Indiaand Persia,or at a transition point between the two.

They all tasted so nice and we had heaps of fun trying to inhale as much as we could before blowing the smoke out. It doesn't taste like normal tobacco at all and kind of feels like you are breathing in air more than anything with a hint of flavour at the end. Steven was trying to teach us how to smoke like Snoop Dog which was quite funny and we ended up feeling really relaxed after smoking them for an hour or so. The staff were lovely to us and even gave us some Iranian desserts and flavoured tea to try while we sat and smoked our shishas. There were two levels to the Shisha bar and as we sat we noticed there were lots of really well dressed Persian women and men walking upstairs. It must have been a well known place for them and they all seemed quite wealthy because when we walked out of the restaurant there were Mercedes, BMW and Audi cars parked everywhere.

Steven, Rachael and I all had a great night hanging out and experiencing new food and culture with each other. We said goodnight to Steven and Rachael and I went back to her house where I stayed for the night. Rachael and I stayed up and chatted and laughed for ages before we feel asleep for the night.