Hostel dramas, or, "This place is better than a soap opera"

---

On my second day in this hostel, when I finally made it into the common lounge, one of the first things anyone said to me was "Watch out for the Italian girl. She's crazy." And they were right - she was actually crazy. Apparently she'd threatened someone with a knife two nights previously.

But it gets better ...

This girl (let's call her 'A') had met an English boy while he was on holiday in Italy. The story goes that he moved back to London and she, thinking that it was true love, followed him over. He, on the other hand, apparently thought it was just a fling ... or he was running away! She had very little money, no credit card and not even a debit card and somehow she ended up with us here in Kilburn.

For the first few days I was here, every time I saw her her eyes were red from crying and she was sniffling into a tissue. The first time I ever heard her speak, it was to tell someone (in VERY garbled English) that she hadn't come home the night before because she'd been outside her "boyfriend"'s door all night, banging on it and crying. She wouldn't speak to anyone besides the self-styled manager of this place (who's really just a long-term boarder) which kind of suited us as we were all either frightened or annoyed with her. Any attempt by us to speak to her was met with silence or abuse. But he (we'll call him 'D') was very sympathetic to her and even convinced the management not to throw her out after the knife incident because he was worried that she didn't have any money and she'd end up hooking in Soho. Even though she'd managed to alienate everyone else, D stuck by her despite our best urgings.

----
BTW, my roommate, who is Polish but lives in Holland and also speaks fluent Italian, had one conversation with her and each night after that has double checked that our door is locked.
-----

Then yesterday afternoon, I found D's credit card on the sink in the downstairs bathroom. Apparently he'd lent it to A to book some rail tickets on the internet and she'd left it there. She'd given him the money, which he'd put on his credit card, and then she was supposed to book the tickets. When I got home from dinner with Desh late last night, the shit had well and truly hit the fan. Apparently, earlier that evening, she'd come rushing into the crowded lounge screaming at him "you stole my money! Give me back my money!" and generally accusing him of theft. I found out today that, nuts as she was, she actually had a couple of people believing that D had stolen her money. Needless to say, he wasn't so sweet on her any more. He was pissed, especially seeing as he'd stuck up for her against us and she'd turned on him in front of everyone.

Finally, today, after a nice relaxing day in Hyde Park, I get back to the hostel to discover that not only has she skipped out of here in the middle of the night, but she's also copied down D's credit card details and used them to buy a particularly unsavory item from a shop of ill-repute on the internet. So the poor guy has had to cancel his credit card and is trying to convince his brother not to go round to where she's staying now and ... erm ... have words with her.

Especially seeing as she's still got a set of keys for this place ...

---

Comments

[Bec]

You definately meet some... interesting... people in hostels. I saw some oddballs in my travels and heard some weird stories but I reckon the crazy Italian chick probably takes the cake! Hope you're adjusting to the weather, we're still under crazy water restrictions back here in Brisvegas and the static electricty has been nutso.

[kylie]

What an eye opener
hey han, so glad you posted this link on facebook as i have been wondering how all is going for you. i have found your tales both hilarious and somewhat nerveracking as i am going to be doing the solo travel thing myself soon...eeekk... sounds like ur having fun though and im looking forward to doing scotland with you!