NYE Trip '15-'16. I put together a pretty intense itinerary with a bunch of friends. Goa-Zanzibar-Hong Kong-Boracay. This Monegasque girl i'd been friends with for a few years was having a tough time and pretty much invited herself along on the trip, so I said OK and helped her with some of her flight bookings. I'd known her for years, but never spent longer with her than a dinner or a night out at bars, never a long trip. She had done some eccentric things in the past, but I never really dug too deeply into it.

By DAY 1 in Goa, 100% of my friends hated her and were like "why did you bring this person." She was incredibly rude, and would basically treat my friends like servants. For example, we'd take a cab somewhere, and she would get out, hand the $ to one of my friends and demand they pay the driver, like it was beneath her or something. This aloof, snobbish behavior permeated everything she did.

I should also note that prior to coming on this trip, in her infinite wisdom, she had neglected to bring a credit card, or debit card and had lost her cell phone. She had some lunatic story about "crooks" trying to "hack" her accounts and harass her. All part of (what I know now) were her mentally ill paranoid delusions. So, in Goa she asks me to float her and she'll pay me back for the room we share. I grit my teeth and go along with it.

On the way to Zanzibar we are connecting through Doha. We have like a 5hour layover in Doha, we are all on the same QR flight. Not a peep from this girl until we start boarding. Once we're about to go down the jetway she informs us that she accidentally booked her flight for the next day, so everyone should get off the plane and help her change her ticket and we'll all go tomorrow. There's a collective "F&%$ Off" from the group, and everyone boards and leaves her in Doha.

Now, while she had neglected to bring credit cards or a debit card, she had about 1,000 Euro on her. Of course, being a sensible person, she spent ALL of this $ during her forced one night layover in Doha. She shows up in Zanzibar with no $, and one of us has to pay the cab. She again asks for credit to cover the hotel, and her mentally ill behavior continues.

We have all long since passed our breaking point with this girl, but what can we do? After NYE, her and I were on different flights from ZNZ back to DAR, and when I landed in DAR, which is a horror show of an airport; with a horrible post NYE hangover, I went straight to my hotel. The princess arrives later and is outraged that I didn't sit at the airport waiting for her (didn't even know what flight she was on), and decides that as a result of this perceived slight, she no longer owes me the $ I have floated her thus far on the trip.

I don't even care at this point. We're on the same SAA flight DAR-JNB, and when they pull her aside because her passport (I forgot) either didn't have any pages left to stamp, or perhaps wasn't valid for more than 6mo, I am PRAYING that they won't let her out of the country and we can close this chapter. No such luck. We get to JNB for our overnight before going to Hong Kong, and she of course has not actually made a hotel booking. I go directly to my room at the airport Intercon and turn my phone off. Princess eventually calls my family friend travel agent and gets the woman to book AND pay for a room for her at the hotel. She of course never paid my poor friend back, and I ended up reimbursing her because it wasn't her problem.

We get to Hong Kong, I am blissfully left alone except for one day when she runs into our group at a bar. My Hong Kong friends who by this point have heard plenty about this nightmare are openly rude to her face, she doesn't even get it. Instead of packing it in and going home, she inexplicably continues and follows me to the Philippines. Daily, when I am at Happy Hour, I regale people with tales of what a nightmare this trip has been and they are like "no, she can't be that bad, there's no way!" Without fail, all of them regret this sentiment, when within 15 minutes of meeting this girl they change their tune to "OMG, she really is that bad, I feel so sorry for you."

The trip ends, she of course welches on her debts, and I consider it a victory to cut my losses on the $ and never see this maniac again. For months after the trip she continues calling me, seemingly not understanding that I am not answering her calls or returning them for a reason. As a bonus, one of my close friends was mad at me for over a YEAR for this, because she blamed the inclusion of this nutter for "ruining" her NYE trip. As if I did it on purpose and it didn't also ruin mine! I mean it didn't ruin it, it was still really fun, but man was she a handful. Never again.