Last Saturday, instead of watching football, I went to a wedding.

Two well-known facts about me: 1) I love sports. 2) I dread going weddings. So this decision was very out-of-character, but part of joining the Peace Corps means letting go of habits I had in America and adapting to a new way of life. Or something like that. So when my Volunteer friend Miranda invited me to her host sister’s wedding in Milot, a small rural village in the north, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to attend an authentic, traditional Albanian wedding, even though the date fell on College Football Christmas (what I like to call the season opener). But I’m so happy that I went, because attending my first Albanian wedding was just as exhilarating, if not more so, than a day at Autzen Stadium. (And certainly more exciting than watching a game on an 11-inch screen…