Never was there a tale of more woe, than that of Amanda Knox & Raffaele Sollecito, two of the primary suspects in the Meredith Kercher murder trial. Doesn’t have quite the same ring as Romeo & Juliet, but if people find Knox and Sollecito only half as captivating as Shakespeare’s doomed couple, than the defense will be satisfied, I believe.

In the first day of the trial, the defense’s claim is that Knox and Sollecito were merely ‘two innocent lovebirds’ who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The place happened to be the cottage where both Knox and Kercher were housemates. Both transfer students, Kercher from England, and Knox from the U.S., were allegedly in the house at the time of the murder. Obviously this was the case with the victim, Meredith Kercher, so the dispute is whether or not Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend, Sollecito, were there as well. Knox is now claiming that instead of being at the cottage, she was smoking hashish at Sollecito’s flat.

Although this case is tragic, another tragedy that is only being touched upon lightly is the errors in judgment that Knox made. First of all, being associated with the likes of Rudy Guede, an Ivory Coast native and known drug dealer, is asking for nothing but trouble; Guede is already serving a 30-year sentence for this crime. Secondly, as seen in the case of Natalee Holloway in Aruba, young people have to be a little more cautious with the people they meet when they’re abroad, and how overnight these people become ‘friends’ or someone they ‘fall in love with’.

That being said, there’s nothing wrong with meeting people in your international travels. I have plenty of friends who I met overseas and we stay in touch. However, all the friends I’ve made outside the U.S. were through people I already knew. So they passed an unofficial screening test of sorts.

It’s no different than making friends here domestically. You’re more likely to trust someone who you met through someone you know. So why should it be any different when you go overseas? The moral of this story is whenever your in a foreign country and an African drug-dealer (and/or an Asian, American, European, Australian, Mormon, Christian, Muslim, short, tall, fat, and/or beautiful drug dealers for that matter) approaches you about playing sex games, despite the temptation that may arise, pass on it and have fun elsewhere.

Just ask Amanda Knox. If I had to guess, she would rather be comparable to a role in a Shakespearean comedy than a Shakespearean tragedy.