That summer I went with my friend Alex to Université Laval on the EXPLORE program to learn French. By the time we arrived in Ste Foy, it was late and we hadn’t eaten. We walked past the set of three malls next to the campus, half exploring, half desperate for a meal. The only place that was open, was Beyrouth Cité, a 24-hour Lebanese restaurant. The man who worked the night shift dressed like a pirate, blared Middle Eastern techno music and gave us generous doses of garlic mayonnaise, or “mayo magique.” His persona was too weird to be normal, too real to be a gimmick, but either way we ate it up. And it was delicious.

(Prepare for old, slightly embarassing picture)

Some of my best memories of Québec City involve schwarma and this man (pictured center.) He had whetted my appetite for schwarma but I needed to find a place in Toronto that could sustain it.

Wrap & Grab
618 Yonge Street/ 416-915-7482

Wrap & Grab was a big part of my life in second year. It used to be located at Yonge and College, which made it close enough from campus for lunch and on route to the streetcar ride home. This summer they moved to a new location at Yonge and St. Joseph (one block north of Wellesley) but I still find myself making the trip. $6.99 buys you 2 schwarmas, chicken or beef, but I don’t go there for the price. I pass at least 10 schwarma places on the walk from school to Wrap & Grab but I doubt any can do the schwarma this kind of justice.

Their schwarma is, in a word, godly. The meat is freshly cut and expertly seasoned. Opt for the hot sauce, it’s the flavourful kind of spicy, not hot. Personally, when I remember I pass on the hummus and ask for extra garlic. Maybe eating schwarma lets me relive Québec, or maybe I’m just partial to those flavours–either way, it tastes amazing.

He said I lived and treated our house like it was temporary. I knew I was bad at cleaning, cooking and every other exercise in domesticity. But he said it was because I made no attempt to personalize the house and only when my replacement moved in did the house “finally look like someone lives here.” He made me rhetorically promise the next time I lived on my own I would live better instead of just choosing to do without.

Yes, we used the clear curtain liner our landlord gave us instead as an excuse not to buy a shower curtain. Yes, our one plastic spatula was slightly melted. And maybe there was one time I had to run to Shoppers Drug Mart bleeding to buy band-aids when I accidentally cut my finger and realized we didn’t have any.  But isn’t the impoverished college student lifestyle acceptable when you are an impoverished college student? Still, he had a point.

I remembered what he said today when I was shopping for a backpack for my new laptop and to take traveling in Europe. I have a new laptop because I cracked the screen of the old one a year ago when I left it under a car seat unprotected (while the car was being driven.) Today I stood inside a backpack mecca today with a bag that met my basic requirements (reasonably priced) and one that promised more comfort for me, more safety for my computer and some fun hi-tech gizmos (what I would call indulgent) at a crossroads. It required some justification and debate, but I allowed myself the more expensive bag.

Three weeks from now I am leaving for the Netherlands to go on exchange and it will be the impoverished life once more. I will be fending for myself in foreign lands for seven months. But I am proud to have taken the first step to leaving the coddled suburban comfort I hope to outgrow the only way I know how. God bless Mastercard.