Hookah-ing Up Astoria

I've become a cheap bastard in New York. My money supplies have been reduced to the point I have to put foreign currency and maxed-out cards in my wallet, just to feel like a functioning member of Capitalism. I've been surviving on pasta, stolen Wireless and cigarettes.
To save money, I've been hanging out in my place with friends and beers. A couple days ago, we decided to change things a little, so we went to a 5-dollar hookah coffee shop in Steinway Street, in Astoria.
The place looked like a run-down house. Some Egyptian men were chatting in there, and they greeted us as we walked in, smoke coming out of their mouths. "Hello," they would say, and as I asked them how they were doing, they smiled like fruit-flavored chimneys.
A man dressed in a yellow shirt, who looked like the owner, sat in the table next to us with his friend. "Hi, how are you doing?" I said, and he said he was doing good. He said he was from Egypt, and his friend recommended us the apple-flavored hookah, so we got it.
"So, why did you come here?" I asked him, and he started talking in what I presume was Arabic. I kept on smoking my apple-flavored hookah, letting the bubbles rise. No Arabic came out of my mouth, just apple-smelling smoke. I turned to talk to the people in my table.
As we were leaving, his friend told us to come back anytime. "We will," I said, and we stepped out into a street with parked yellow cabs and smoking coffee shops. I jumped over a few trash bags to get into my friend's car, and we took the expressway out of there.