Junior Year in Italy: ‘Not At All What I Expected’

Travel Blog  •  Julia Ross  •  12.10.07 | 9:41 AM ET

Stanford student Sophie Egan’s year abroad in Bologna, Italy, has taken an unexpected turn. Because one of the suspects in a grisly murder case in another Italian city, Perugia, happens to be an American woman Egan’s age and from the same hometown—Seattle—Egan finds herself fending off wary inquiries. Despite the unfortunate similarities, Egan hasn’t given up on her quest for cultural immersion. “Sure, answering the question ‘Where are you from?’ is a bit more awkward,” she writes in a New York Times op-ed, “but it certainly gets the conversations going.”

Tags: Europe, Italy

Julia Ross is a Washington, DC-based writer and frequent contributor to World Hum. She has lived in China and Taiwan, where she was a Fulbright scholar and Mandarin student. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Time, Christian Science Monitor, Plenty and other publications. Her essay, Six Degrees of Vietnam, was shortlisted for "The Best American Travel Writing 2009."


1 Comment for Junior Year in Italy: ‘Not At All What I Expected’

Elena 03.13.08 | 4:45 PM ET

thats nonsense. im italian and currently living in cali, attending college here. And i get crap bout being italian, cos, according to people i sound russian or ucranian or something and the conclusion is usually “therefore she must be a mail order bride or something”. it’s just prejudism. It has always been there and it will still be. no big deal. happens everywhere.

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