It is really hard to describe a wedding in Italy until you’ve been to one! Everything is laughter and noise and chaos and cheers and eating and drinking and dancing. It’s exactly like every European-wedding-based romantic comedy you’ve ever seen. Our whole weekend with Karinna and Dario was like riding one giant wedding wave and it was so much fun! Our starting point was Milan, where Dario’s cousin Riccardo and his girlfriend Sabrina met up with us to give us a ride to Dario’s home town of Ruino. Really it was more of a little bitty village than a town. Only 20 or so people live there! Ruino is way off the beaten path in an area where tourists basically don’t exist. When we got there we had a little time before the rehearsal dinner started, so Riccardo dropped us off at the “Albergo” where we would be staying during our time at the wedding. An albergo is basically the local Restaurant/Cafe/Bar/Inn, and the reason it is all those things in one is because it’s the only Restaurant, Cafe, Bar, or Inn for about 10 miles. (And 10 miles away it’s most likely another Albergo.) To add to the adventure, nobody at the inn spoke any English. In fact, nobody in the area spoke English. Only Karina, Dario, Karinna’s family, and a smattering of cousins who had moved to the city and gotten jobs at international companies were English speakers so everyone knew the moment we were nearby that we weren’t from Ruino! Since we had some time before the rehearsal, we decided to go for a little walk down toward where we knew Dario’s mom’s house was, and when we rounded the corner, this is the view we got of Dario’s village.
