How did you start smoking?

[NERV]

In relation to my "Why do you smoke?" thread, I am also starting a
thread where people can sound off and discuss what got them started.
This topic may be more qualified for the general discussion section,
but I think it would have more lasting power over in this less active
section, and it still applies to the guidelines.

I was first introduced to the hookah at 16. A friend told me about it,
and that there was a local store that sold them. It was a turkish store
in one of our smaller malls. We talked the owner down to $35 for a nice
small hookah. We weren't carded, it wasn't any ill intent by the store
owner, I just think he wasn't aware of the law, he started carding
about a year ago. My friend and I were completely uninformed on setup,
and the store owner wasn't fluent in english. The most we got out of
him was that you put foil over the tobacco. my friend said that you
supposed to surround the bowl with coals on the tray. That didn't make
much sense to me and common sense dictated round coal fits on round
bowl. Surprisingly our first attempt
was successful without burning even tho we packed the tobacco pretty
tight and pressed the foil down onto of it. For awhile it was good.
Then, after a month or two, we started getting those crunchy bits from
the hose. We couldn't get a straight answer out fo the store owner, so
I turned to the internet. The first site I found had a pretty good FAQ
that said the hoses needed to be replaced every so often. We started
ordering online. Then, we started to get some burning since the golden
coals burn hotter than the ones the turkish store sold. Further
internet searching found my way to this forum where I learned many
things like the foil shouldn't touch the tobacco, and I quickly became a pro. The rest is history.

[ZAP]

I got introduced to it a few years back when I was 12 or 13.  I
went to a cousins house to stay and he had it out and I found it really
funny.  He actually let me have a couple of drags after getting
convinced that their is no tar or nicotine in due to the water
filtoring it.  It was apple flavor and I really like it. 
After that, I was very interested in it but I had terrible luck with
hookahs.  I remember getting one that was at my sisters house for
years doing nothing and it had so many air leaks it was unreal and I
had no idea on the concept of how a hookah works at the time so I
pretty much gave up.  I would go to the local Hookah bar now and
then, usually once every few months as £4 was a lot to me back then and
so was £2 since I went with a friend.  Last summer, I went to
Saudi Arabia and got myself a new Bohemian hookah for a bargain price
and I still couldn't get that to work correctly.  It's just
recently that I got back interested in it and bought a new Hookah which
actually works!

[Ghaleon]

My first puff was at a hookah bar in ann arbor, MI.  it was a
plum/lemon mix; three hits and I was flying.  It was a great bar
to; belly dancers and everything.  It has since turned into a 21+
dance club though.  bummer.

[Stew]

My first time was from a friends hookah he bought when he was in egypt.
We hotboxed a friend of a friend's van and listened to Pink Floyd's The
Wall. By the end of the session we all smelled like apple and orange
ma'asell. It was an experience that I will not forget.
The conversations held around the hookah are up there among the ranks
of bonfire conversations. It's a very relaxed atmosphere around the
pipe. I came away from the session with a greater respect and reverence
for Pink Floyd.

[jamie_lib]

i first heard about the hookah after my brother came back from the iraq war, and had pictures of him and his friends smoking on a hookah that him and his friends bought there. it looked like soo much fun, and was described to me so well, i had to have one. so we went into kingsbury, london, and bought my first hookah at a halal butchers when i was 15 for £25. i brought it home, with the mint tobacco i bought. i set it up in my back garden, and was using it for about an hour (just one tobacco patty and charcoal. lol) after researching into it abit more, i found that i was doing it quite wrong in places, and found that my hookah was absaloutly crap. so i recently bought a new hookah from an islamic sweet shop, and it is brilliant. there is something good about the war in iraq, i found out about the hookah.

[mikem]

I first came across the hookah when i was in high school. One of my friends sisters did some missionary work in the middle east. While she was there she brought him back a hookah from egypt.  I only smoked it once but i thought it was cool as hell. Then a few years down the road my best friend ordered one off the internet and had it at a party and I loved it so i ordered one for myself and have been smoking ever since.

[wizzard880]

my first puff which has led to many more, actually was at an eastern orthadox christian, church retreat with a priest and some felow kids from the church. we were having a retreat where kids from everywhere from the us come to a hotel. And it just happened that i was in this room where the kids lit up an argilah. and of cource in walks a priest, who actually to my surprise sat down and smoked with us. we all ended up having a long and deep conversation and it was a great time.

[Sonthert]

My friend and I used to play backgammon for money and smoke cigars. One night, as we were walking back to the car, he said:"Look in there, They serve hookahs""What's the name of the place?", I said"Fumari." he said and he proceeded to explain how he knew about the place. We made up our mind to go there. They had really been open three months or so. Fumari has done alot of great stuff for the industry. We might not be on this forum if it wan't for them. Waleed and Maher...I salute you! (Sorry we don't get along so well anymore)I smoked the first hookah at Mediterranean (also in San Diego), I smoked hookah after a few months at Cairo, I smoked the first hookah at Xen and I defiled the plant at Sinbad. After my smoking at Fumari, I smoked more and more and more. Its been 8 years now. I haven't quit.

[LoneWolf367]

I heard about hookah while looking on line for health risks related to cigar smoking and read that the tobacco came in all sorts of yummy flavors. My friends were talking about smoking and I said I'd like to try smoking hookah and he just happened to have one so a few hours later we got a mini camping stove and his gear and lit up for a lovely night ontop of an abandoned school house. It was the start of a beautiful relationship.

[ahc87]

[quote name='wizzard880']my first puff which has led to many more, actually was at an eastern orthadox christian, church retreat with a priest and some felow kids from the church. we were having a retreat where kids from everywhere from the us come to a hotel. And it just happened that i was in this room where the kids lit up an argilah. and of cource in walks a priest, who actually to my surprise sat down and smoked with us. we all ended up having a long and deep conversation and it was a great time.[/quote]
Hey! im orthodox as well.... i wasnt expecting to find any other american orthodox christians on here!..... small world i guess. pm me if you get the time

[HookahLion]

I was at a party one day in my prude days.  I thought it was drugs so I wouldn't touch it.  Finally my friends convinced me to try it.  I loved it!

[PipeSmokeMcGee]

during the chinese revolt at tianamen square, i was dancing a jig in the middle of the square when a chinese tank driver came up and uttered the words "hi-yung xiang-lee cheesetoast ry-roha", which literally mean "Stop!  Don't seize my cheese toast!"  i responded "you have no bottom" and he gave me a hookah out of respect for my large sideburns.  I smoked it and have loved it ever since

[PipeSmokeMcGee]

actually, I took a trip all around Western Europe from London to Paris to Switzerland to Italy when an aquaintence from a different group on the same tour bought one for about 25 dollars at a shop in Switzerland.  He was quite an accomplished hookah smoker and was just getting another for a good price.  Upon getting separated from the rest of the 40 odd member group in Florence, we decided to return to the hotel and break in this new shisha.  With strawberry shisha (I think it was Nahkla), we sat in the hotel courtyard and I had my first hookah experience...probably the best in my life.  Five months later, I bought my own 17" Junior Modern (which, I must say, smokes like a champ) and have loved every drag from it!
BEN

[Monil]

My first time was at my cousins house on mother's day (no idea why I remember that exact date but yeah...), 15 at the time.

[HookahCaterpillar]

I remember the first time i smoked shisha vividly... I worked in a
restaurant at the time as an apprentice and i got off work at 10-11pm
came home and my brother and his gf and all her friends were leaving
for somewhere. They said were going to a hookah bar and i had never
even heard of it and i was starved so i said ill go to get some food.
We go there and i ask the lady what flavor she reccomends and she says
pomegranate so i got that and o man i was in love. My brother bought a
hookah and all that goes along with it. We got home and smoked shisha
all night long I couldnt get enough of it. 3 years later I am still an
avid shisha smoker 

[HookahCaterpillar]

Also I looked around and saw ppl blowing rings and i was so envious of
them. Now i am the one that gets stared at when blowing rings haha I
realize now they cant TOUCH my smoke rings but at the time they were
amazing to me haha. 

[nuschultz]

I was first introduced last year, my soph year of college, by a fellow RA.  He is originally from Iraq.  When he first showed it to the staff, we all thought it was a bong of course.  But the first time we all sat around smoking, it was amazing.  I wanted one, because I could tell that it was a great social setting tool.
I bought my first hookah a couple days ago, and I have been in love with it since then.  Unfortunately, my university has a policy forbidding the hookah, so I have to keep it in its case, so noone can see it.  I am getting an apartment this summer, which means I will be able to leave it set up and viewable to everyone.
Best investment I have ever made.

[kilgore trout]

About 10 months ago my brother brought back this ultra ghetto hookah
from Turkey.  He said he got it in a market in Ankara for like
$15, but the thing smokes like you wouldn't believe.  I've been
hooked ever since.

[coolaskimdeal]

my first hookah experience was last year, after the bars closed down, some friends and i were out wandering around, not quite ready to go home at 1 am but completely uninterested in going to denny's or one of the other post-bar hangouts in portland.  we ended up at the new hookah bar (the purple catepillar), and when i walked in i was a little turned off by how cliche it was (jack kerouac quotes on the wall, the doors greatest hits playing, chiffon everywhere), but once we sat down with the pipe i was hooked.  i bought my own hookah the next week, and started buying all kinds of massell with reckless abandon.  now my friends always want to come over and smoke because they're all as stoked about it as i am.  my dog isn't a big fan, though... he goes and hides whenever we start smoking
~m.
 
ps. kilgore trout, nice username, that's my fave book!

[DizzyGuy]

First time... I went to party with my friends and frat brothers in Tennessee one night and someone had a hookah that they were passing around... so I took a couple drags... it was the hookah hookah brand of hazelnut.  Now, I hate smoking cigarettes, so I was more than presently surprized with the taste being so good and there being none of the burning.  So yeah, my roommate bought one a couple of weeks after that... it did the trick and we kinda stumbled along trying to make sure it worked right when ever we got shisha, which wasn't often.  Well, in the search for shisha one day, we found out about a hookah bar an hour down the road... so a couple of days later, we loaded up and went for a smoking session.  I must say, I enjoyed the 30 something inch hookah rather than an 18 inch one... And that place was also where I learned about salvia.  But yeah, here I am, looking up info and just ordered my own hookah.

[shimshamsam]

i remember my first time like it was yesterday. i was a renaissance fair next to a lake. it was a beautiful day and i was sitting on a peir sitting with my girl friend and a couple good friends... probably one of my most treasured memories, cherry hookah some coconut rum, great company and nothing like smoking hookah on a peir, the waves are really relaxing. ill remember that day forever. i cant wait till that fair comes around again... oh its next weekend... YES!!!!

[Lugia]

Interestingly enough, my father had a hookah back in the early-mid 1960s. However, that's not where I picked it up from...I've smoked since I was 16 or so, started with cigars, then went to clove cigs. I've never liked the taste or aroma of cigarettes, but real tobacco...pure, unadulterated...that's always had an appeal for me, along with certain flavorings. The idea of the different, complicated array of flavors for the modern-day hookah intrigued me, so a couple of years back I picked up a medium-sized Egyptian (Hookah Bros.) from a local shop along with some double apple and a few other ma'assels and gave it a whirl. Took to it immediately, and apart from a bit of a hiatus while finding an untippable vase (the Hookah Bros. one was very tippy...too small a base for the rest of the machine), I've been smoking it fairly routinely ever since.

[DownZero]

I actually just met my friend Hookah about 4 or 5 months ago... I ran into an old childhood friend when I transferred colleges and he had a hookah.. From where I'm from, the word hookah/shisha etc are unknown, so therefor I didn't know anything about it. he said he hadn't used it in a long while and wanted to just hang out at his place and smoke.. so I was down for trying it and I liked it. Now a few friends and I just go to local hookah lounges and relax, its usually our Thursday ritual... and any other day we have nothing to do... heh

[SafeSearch]

My first time was just at the beginning of this schoolyear, last september.  My friend is lebanese and his dad brought him one back from a home visit and we sat down with him and had a grand old time.  Since then I pretty much live at his house and leech off of him till my other friend got me my sketchy hookah.  As soon as I rake in bills its time for a real one.

[Joseph]

I didn't touch tobaco until I was 18 .  I started with cigars, a Romeo y Julietta one of my friends got me for my 18th birthday.  Then I moved to stronger cigars like Partagas Blacks.  One day a friend of mine and I walked by a cafe that had hookahs, and we went in and tried one.  It was appricot.  When I got to college later on, one of my roomates randomly bought a hookah and we would smoke together.  Then he decided he didn't want it anymore, so he gave it to me.  I am the rare person who didn't start using tobacco until I was 18.