Our fairytale began in November 2008. Ronald and I met at a New Orleans Saints football game. He happen to be seated next to me and me being the hospitable Louisianaian spoke. He responded in a very sexy Dutch accent and all I could say was "Where the hell are you from"? And why are you in Louisiana? He explained that he was on vacation and wanted to see New Orleans for himself after the devastation of Hurricaine Katrina. We spent the next three hours talking. Me asking 100 hundred questions and he only wanted to know why do we call the game football (since soccer is actually played with the feet). I had taken some pictures with my camera of Ronald with the scoreboard in the background and one of the two of us because his battery died on his camera. I wrote down his email address and I was suppose to email him the pictures. After the game was over we walked out the stadium together still talking (The Saints won over Green Bay). We said goodbye and parted ways. Oh my I lost the email address.

Oh my!!! He found me some months later. One day when I opened my facebook page I noticed that I had a message in my little inbox. I clicked on the icon and a message popped up. " I'm looking for a lady that sat beside a man from the Netherlands at a Saints/Green Bay game and I was wondering if you are the same Winona". I could have been knocked over with a feather at that moment. I responded to his message with a yes that would be me. Upon realizing that our time zones were so far apart, we managed to chat on Facebook eventually. His first question to me was. " Do you still have that picture of me on your camera"? So then I sent him an email with his pictures and the one of us together. I told him the picture was for him to never forget me (haha).

 I think that Ronald likes visting the US because he came back again. This time following his favorite group U2. They were doing another World Tour. And it happen to be football season again. He traveled all the way from Florida on his way to Dallas and stopped to visit with me.

After months of chatting back and forth on facebook, Ronald asks like a perfect gentleman if he can come and visit me in Shreveport. Of course I said yes. We took our first vacation together where it all began. We went to New Orleans and I had never been a tourist there before as many times as I've been to New Orleans. We did all the touristy stuff. I introduced him to some real southern cajun foods. He enjoyed the Fried Catfish the most and fell in love with Bread Pudding (guess what I will be cooking). He loved Louisiana so much he came back again a few months later. We managed to make a romance work across 4800miles (7000 kilometers). WOW !!!

After so many trips to the US, Ronald asked me to visit him in the Netherlands and of course I said yes, again (what else is a girl to say to such a handsome man). This time it was Ronald's turn to be a tourist in his own Country. He took me all over, we visted Amsterdam where I walked in Anne Frank's house. We went to the Van Gogh museum and did a Canal tour, and the most fun was the Red Light District (omg the things I saw). I even went to my very first soccer game. The World Cup runner's up Netherland vs Sweden.

Then we traveled by car to Paris France (would you believe he let me drive and he took a nap). There I got to see one of the seven wonders of the world the Eiffel Tower. It was beautiful, something out of a movie scene. I couldn't believe it was me standing there looking up and up and up(boy is it tall). Where to start, we did all the Paris touristy stuff, we did a Canal tour where we could hop on and off to visit lot of other places. We toured Notre Dame, the Louvre, and the Arch of Triumph(guess what there is no elevator, but hundreds and hundreds of steps). We went to Versailles which is King Louis XIV Palace. We waited 2 hours outside in the cold just waiting to get in, but it was so worth it. The inside was awesome there were statues, and paintings everywhere. I even got to see his bedroom chambers. There were fireplaces so big that huge tree trunks rested in the pits. And the most wonderful item of all was to see my Louisiana symbol the Fluer-di-lis all over the palace ( you know the french brought it with them). I also got to see Mickey and Minnie at Euro Disney.

We made several trips to the Eiffel tower. We strolled by in the day time to get a good view. There were lots of people peddling there mini Eiffel towers(i brouht a few of those home). There were even armed guards to keep everyone safe. At night the tower was all lit up like a christmas tree, it sparkled once every hour. We had such a wonderful time. We had to stand in these long lines (you know like herding cattle) to get to the window just to buy a ticket to get to the top. We were next in line at the window and a big message popped up, The Top of the Eiffel Tower is Closed. I was devastated, but we were able to purchase tickets for the top for the next night (yes we had an appointment).

The next day came and we did lots and lots and lots of walking and boy was I tired. The restaurants were awesome ( by the way they don't do free refills)  and I had some real escargot (I felt like pretty woman) There was even the oddest bathroom on the sidewalk, it was a huge automatic porta pottie. It even cleaned itself after each person ( talk about high tech). The evening came and we made out way back to the Eiffel Tower, this time we got VIP service no herding of cattle. We were able to walk right up to the front to catch an elevator that takes you to the 2nd floor then another elevator to the very top. We saw all over the city of Paris from there. Oh my something that everyone should get to experience. It was on top of the Eiffel Tower (300 feet in the air) that Ronald proposed and I said Yes !!!