When you look at my sister and I--our skin tones are different, our lips and noses and eyes are easily described differently in comparison to each other. It's just not the stuff anyone thinks to use when describing us the first time (except maybe my big lips).
There was a girl at university with the both of us who looked like both of us. It was quite freaky. We both got mistaken for her--my sister would actually play along. She was our midpoint.
Never actually met her. She played rugby. I always thought she seemed cool, but, really, how much of that was arrogance?
We ended up in the same cafe once. We both watched each other in the mirror the whole time.
In France, most common guesses as to my nationality were Italian and Swedish.
I suspect there's only one person in the world who's Italian/Swedish: Isabella Rossellini.
Could be worse.
Okay, but that's it! Only those two. No other Swedes could possibly have produced children with Italians in the history of the world.
Europe confuses me, because isn;t Sweden closer to Italy than Maine to California? But no one looks "mainish" or "californish" except in dress.
Oooh, other interesting tidbits about the woman not on Ross's laminated card.
Rossellini was born in Rome, and raised there, as well as in Santa Marinella and Paris. At 13, she was diagnosed with scoliosis. In order to correct it, Isabella had to undergo an 18 month ordeal of painful stretchings, body casts, surgery on her spine using pieces of one of her shin bones (used to add supports for the individual vertebrae without risking foreign body rejection tissues), and a recovery from that surgery. Consequently, she has permanent incision scars on her back and shin.
At 19, she went to New York, where she attended Finch College while working as a translator, a ringmaster at circuses and a RAI television reporter. She also appeared intermittently on Roberto Benigni's Italian comedy show, The Other Sunday.
When I was in high school, people often thought my sister and I were twins. We are six years apart.
My sister and I *still* get this. We are also six years apart.
And then there's juliana and I, who manage to look alike despite different height, skin tone, eye color, and body type. I think it's the features and the smile.
"Are you sisters?" We said yes, and she looked at us sceptically and asked, "Full sisters?"
And WTF does that mean!?! As some one with 2 sisters and a brother who probably aren't what she would consider "full" but who don't give a flying fuck because that's how we think of each other, I'm a bit offended.
I've had people ask about my sisters, and I explain that they are my step-father's daughters. And then I get a dismissive, "Oh, your step-sisters." Then they get an eyebrow and they are called my sisters ever after.
I think it's the features and the smile.
Well, yes, there's that and the batshit crazy energy when you get near each other.
In terms of people guessing ancestry, I have most often gotten Asian, including by my recent half-Korean ex. I've also gotten French, Eastern European, and American Indian. I'm pretty mixed, but I'm about half German Jewish.
