Has anyone ever stayed in a hostel?

Holy shit, it was fucking horrible!!! It all started a few days after I came to England. There was this strange pain in my leg so I went to bed thinking it would go away but it didn't. It intensified by the next day and later on I ended up having to go to the hospital for blood work. I thought that I had developed a blood clot in my leg from the 7hr flight. Where in which, I made the mistake of not getting up or stretching at all. Thankfully, the blood test came out negative.

When I got to France, things got much worse. My health took a strange nosedive and I felt like I was dying. I was having intense and disturbing hallucinations. Once, I was crossing a bridge and I started hearing a young woman singing in my head accompanied by music. I can't remember how many times I had visual hallucinations, but three incidences stand out the most. 1. I was getting in bed and there was this cute white glowing orb at the foot of it. It was moving rather fast and then it went over the end of the bed. I looked down there and it had disappeared. 2. I had just gotten out of the bath and I was looking in the mirror when I got the overwhelming sensation that I was being watched. I looked up at the ceiling to my horror there was a male head right where the smoke alarm should have been. It had a hairstyle that was close to a afro and it's skin was blackish-grey and it had crooked fangs and it was staring at me! I was too scared to move and eventually it disappeared. 3. I could've sworn I saw the Grim Reaper in the bathroom mirror. O_0

Other symptoms I remember having were: black waste, disorientation, balance issues, I felt like the ground underneath me was constantly moving and I could feel every single vibration, the ground felt extremely soft when I stepped on it, much like a sponge or a mushroom, Extreme amounts of fatigue, etc. I remember going to the Louvre with the tour group and we were walking up a staircase. When, I got up the top I lost my balance. The Polish couple were the only people I remember who ran towards me to try catch me. Thankfully, I didn't fall over though. I somehow regain my balance but almost fell on my face in the process.

The other problem with Paris was my grandmother. On the first night. we got into a very odd argument and for the rest of the trip, the things she had started doing in Britain became a behavioral pattern that she continued all throughout our stay in France, where as in Rome it lessened... She kept following me around and staring at me. She was extremely obsessive and abusive. We had to sit together on the bus. We had to get off the bus together and at the same pace. She refused to let any get ahead of her while we were getting off the bus. Getting on or off the bus she would literally attempt to press her whole body into mine. Which of course freaked me out and there were many occasions where I had to get physical like jabbing her with my elbow to get her stop. We had had to walk at the same pace. She had a problem if I walked behind her or many miles ahead of her.

If the situation wasn't worse enough, things got so intense that I became extremely suicidal. I was constantly contemplating and fantasizing about how I would do it. For instance, let's say I was on a bridge, I'd think about jumping off of it. Problem is I can't swim and I'm afraid of water so, what if when before I hit the water I changed my mind? I'd be screwed. Then, I thought about the Eiffel Tower. It's one of the tallest buildings in the world so if I jumped the chances of me surviving would be extremely slim, but there is my fear of heights. On another occasion, I considered stabbing myself but there were more complications. I guess you could say that I was too scared to step into the unknown and too scared of what would happen if I survived. All of this does make me wonder, if I could've mustered the courage to carry out my plans considering the state I was in, but alas, there would've been no note which if successful, would make people forever question my reasons....

I apologize if you find this a tad depressing, but it needed to be addressed! All that aside, there were some lovely aspects of the city. There's something very dreamlike and surreal about Paris. It's not just the botany that creates this effect or the buildings. It's the city the as a whole. The way the light reflects on the water at night to how the wind rustles the leaves to the detail that went into the pavement and so on. It's all connected. Have you been to the Moulin Rouge? Ah! Such a lovely place. Nice food, but the entertainment... I tried not to express much emotion because I didn't want people to how much I was enjoying it. But every time the guys came on, for some reason, I found it absolutely hilarious! I don't know what it was about them that set me off. Maybe, it was their dance routine or maybe I didn't see where they fit in with the ladies.

I think perhaps, the thing I was most surprised about was the Mona Lisa. When you go into that room there's a huge crowd on one side around the painting. Unlike the other paintings, you can't get up close to hers and she's encased in glass. Apparently, her painting is air conditioned within that case. But, it's her size that got me. You'd think that it would be a big painting but it's extremely small! The same experience can be said for Salvador Dali's Persistence of Memory. I remember seeing that in MOMA and while it didn't get the same fanfare as the Mona Lisa, the two are very similar. With both you'd expect them to be large, I suppose this may be due to their fame, and the artist's outstanding attention to detail. (I apologize for the length of this)