“I thought that was so distasteful – a dollar bill? Can’t you write your address on something else, like a beer card, or something?” she recalls. Courtesy of Marty Kovalsky and Myriam Van Zeebroeckīefore they went their separate ways, Marty dug out an American dollar bill from his rucksack and scribbled down his home address back in Los Angeles, handing it to Myriam who examined the note, bemused. Here's Marty Kovalsky photographed in Brussels in the summer of 1986. “She kissed me in the tavern,” recalls Marty. The chemistry they’d felt in the chocolate shop was even more acute when they were sitting across from one another. The two of them walked through the Grand Place together and then ducked into a local bar. Myriam suggested Marty come back at 6 p.m., and meet her around the back of the store. “Then I got up the nerve and I said, ‘How would you like to show me around Brussels?’” recalls Marty. He told Myriam he was loving Brussels so far, but knew he’d only skimmed the surface of the city. Marty was 23, a recent college graduate on his first ever trip outside the United States. Myriam was 21 and had lived in Brussels her whole life, she’d grown up in a Dutch-speaking household and was fluent in multiple languages. On Marty’s fifth visit to the store, Myriam and Marty talked a little less about chocolate and a little more about themselves. Myriam brushed their comments off, but still spent each shift wondering if and when Marty might walk through the store door. Myriam’s coworkers were convinced the American tourists was going to ask her out.

“I kept going back to the same chocolate shop and talking to her and flirting,” he tells CNN Travel today. When Marty walked out the door, 100 grams of chocolate in hand, he was smiling ear to ear. But there was immediately, obviously, something else bubbling under the surface. Myriam and Marty’s first interaction was, on the surface, simply about chocolate. “I liked the job because I was able to use my foreign language skills talking to customers and the place was beautiful and the coworkers were nice.” “I was disappointed that I had not landed my first teaching position, and wanted to work,” Myriam tells CNN Travel. Myriam was a skilled linguist and part time model who’d taken the job at the chocolate shop after she’d failed to secure a longed-for teaching role. Courtesy of Marty Kovalsky and Myriam Van Zeebroeck Here's Myriam Van Zeebroeck pictured in Brussels Grand Place, near the chocolate shop where she worked.

Penpals - tell me why