(CNN) --
Carolyn Mazzie arrived at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport in September 1971, excited to embark on a three-week trip to Europe.
Carolyn, then 30, worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad, an American rail network that has since been absorbed by the Union Pacific railroad company.
Fifty years ago, the Southern Pacific Railroad had several thousand employees, and the company's employee club regularly organized international trips, chartering planes and buses to transport railroad workers across Europe.
In addition to her job duties, Carolyn was involved in organizing these excursions.
She would spend hours in meetings helping to coordinate the plans.
Arriving in Europe always made her a little nervous: if something went slightly wrong, she felt responsible.
Sure they had fun, but Carolyn was always, at least partially, in "work mode."
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On the 1971 trip, Carolyn and her colleagues were picked up at the airport by a bright yellow bus.
As Carolyn directed her companions, helping them carry their luggage on board and settle into her seats, she didn't realize that the tour director was watching her admiringly from afar.
"I was off the bus," Chris De Vreeze, the tour director, told CNN Travel.
"And I must say that I thought she was very pretty from that moment on."
Chris was a twentysomething from the Netherlands.
He had just finished his mandatory military service and had embarked on a backpacking adventure through Europe.
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On his return to the Netherlands, he had gotten a job as a tour manager that, at least in part, satisfied his craving for travel: he worked as a guide on trips to Scandinavian countries, as well as Spain and Portugal.
"We'd pick up the tourists at Schiphol Airport and then we'd travel by bus all over Scandinavia for about three weeks," Chris recalls.
"And that's how we met, for the first time, in Amsterdam."
"At first I didn't pay much attention to Chris," Carolyn says.
She was exhausted from the flight and focused on getting the trip off to a good start.
That first day, Chris's bus headed for Lübeck, in northern Germany, so that the weary transatlantic travelers could get some rest before the next day's journey.
The first leg of the trip went smoothly.
From there, the group caught a ferry from Germany to Denmark and on to Sweden and Norway.
It was on one of these ferry trips that Chris and Carolyn first spoke to each other.
"I remember we were sitting in a hallway on an overnight ferry," Chris recalls.
"We were talking and drinking."
Here are Carolyn and Chris outside the bus.
Courtesy of Chris and Carolyn De Vreeze
Sitting under the stars, the two chatted about their lives up to this point: Chris's travels, Carolyn's job on the railroad.
They talked about the United States and the Netherlands, their differences and similarities.
"We started getting along better and better," says Chris.
It was a clear night and most of the passengers were asleep in their cabins.
Sitting on the deck, Chris and Carolyn gazed out at the horizon.
In the distance, they saw points of turquoise light that danced on the water.
They couldn't believe it, it looked like the northern lights.
This moment, Chris says, "very romantic and moving."
"Although," he adds.
"To this day I'm not sure if it was the Northern Lights or other lights, maybe from a city, or God knows what."
Chris and Carolyn stayed up all night by accident, under the stars, looking at the water, talking, and eventually fell asleep.
When the ferry docked, the other passengers got back on the bus, but Chris and Carolyn were nowhere to be found.
One of the other travelers got off the bus to go look for them.
He found Chris and Carolyn still asleep, sitting side by side on the deck.
Carolyn was mortified.
But she had loved talking to Chris against the bright Scandinavian sky as a backdrop.
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exploring europe
Carolyn and Chris began to spend more and more time together during the trip.
Here they are together in Stockholm.
Courtesy of Chris and Carolyn De Vreeze
Carolyn wrote a journal about her three weeks of traveling through Europe, which she still has.
In it she recounts that most nights she and Chris didn't go to bed until 3 or 4 in the morning, and that they would spend the whole night chatting, partying and getting to know each other.
But while the two were very close, Carolyn was seeing someone else in California.
She didn't think the relationship would last longer than her stay in Europe.
Towards the end of the trip, Chris, Carolyn and other travelers were relaxing in a Dutch hotel bar when the hotel staff informed Carolyn that an international call was waiting for her.
The trip was supposed to have been fully paid for in advance.
But over the phone, Carolyn learned that there were discrepancies in the payment.
The external tour company had apparently not paid for some hotel rooms and airfare.
Carolyn ended up at the headquarters of the airline, Transavia, trying to figure out what was going on and how to fix it.
Chris went with her, for moral support and to see what practical solutions they could find.
Chris and Carolyn worked together to resolve an unexpected crisis.
Courtesy of Chris and Carolyn De Vreeze
It turned out that about $5,000 was missing.
Worst of all, no one knew where they had gone, and until the situation was resolved, Carolyn and her co-workers were stuck in Amsterdam with their charter flight grounded.
With Chris's encouragement, Carolyn contacted Southern Pacific Railroad, which arranged to transfer the funds, but it wouldn't be instantaneous.
An agreement was reached: the chartered flight could leave the next day, but Carolyn and Chris would stay there, handing over their passports as collateral while they waited for the money to arrive.
And so, the rest of Carolyn's group came forward.
Carolyn's classmates didn't fully understand what was going on.
Some thought that she was just looking for an excuse to stay one more day with Chris.
Inside, Carolyn was panicking, but on the outside she was trying to stay calm.
"Carolyn and I spent the night at a hotel near the airport," Chris recalls.
"The next morning, we went to American Express, picked up the $5,000 check and took it to Transavia. And they gave us our passports back."
From there, Carolyn was able to fly to London to meet up with her teammates and fly back to California.
It was an emotional roller coaster that only brought the American tourist and the Dutch tour guide closer together.
"I was desperate, exhausted," Carolyn recalls.
"And my hero came to my rescue and took care of everything. That's when I started thinking, well, this guy is very nice."
Chris says the experience, and the extra day they spent together, "only furthered our romance."
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long distance correspondence
Chris and Carolyn sent lots of letters to each other.
Courtesy of Chris and Carolyn De Vreeze
Before Carolyn boarded her flight, she and Chris exchanged addresses.
Back in the United States, she received the first letter from her from Europe.
"We kept in touch," Carolyn recalls.
Their Californian relationship fizzled out, but the letters to and from the Netherlands continued and increased.
The two corresponded, Chris says, "about anything."
"It was not uncommon for us to receive two or three letters a week," he recalls.
"Lots of telegrams, and expensive phone calls from time to time, not too often. But most of it was by post. So we had lots, still have, lots and lots of letters that we sent to each other."
Chris and Carolyn eagerly awaited the arrival of the letters.
And the rare phone calls were very special.
"He has a wonderful voice, I loved talking to him on the phone," says Carolyn.
If the seeds of their romance were planted on the Scandinavian ferry, the couple fell in love through their long-distance correspondence.
When Chris planned a visit to the United States in December, Carolyn had a "little feeling" that he would propose to her.
Her instinct was spot on.
"I always wanted to see her again, of course, and I already made up my mind: I was going to ask her to marry me," says Chris.
To get from the Netherlands to the United States, Chris spent more than 24 hours on the road: he flew from Amsterdam to Luxembourg, from there to Reykjavik, Iceland, and from there to New York, before flying across the United States to California.
Chris had traveled a lot, but he had never taken such a huge plane trip.
And he had never embarked on a journey that seemed so important.
He was nervous and excited.
"But when I got there, I met his family," says Chris, who he describes as "wonderful people."
The request for a hand, he says, was "old-fashioned."
"I have to admit I was pretty nervous," he says.
"The nervousness disappeared when Carolyn accepted and it became a moment of joy for both of us."
Carolyn says her family loved Chris from the start.
If her loved ones had doubts about her falling for the European tour manager she'd only met once (“Who ends up with their tour manager on a trip to Europe?” she jokes) they didn't express them.
"I was 30 years old. At that time it was a little late to know someone," adds Carolyn with a laugh.
"So they were very happy."
Carolyn was much closer to her family than Chris was, so living together in the United States seemed like the obvious choice.
It turned out to be more complicated than the couple had anticipated.
Chris's visa was delayed for several months, but eventually Chris and Carolyn were married in May 1973 in the United States.
Carolyn adopted Chris's last name, becoming Carolyn De Vreeze.
Here are Carolyn and Chris on their wedding day.
Credit: Selma Photos, Castro Valley, CA
The wedding was a joyous and raucous occasion, attended by some 500 guests.
"It was a great party, with a live band and everything...it was absolutely fabulous," Chris recalls.
Most of the attendees were Carolyn's friends and family.
"I invited all my friends from work, everyone I could think of," Carolyn says.
Chris's guests were fewer.
"In the late 1960s, early 1970s, a trip to the United States was a huge thing," he explains.
But he says he didn't care.
"I had you," Chris tells Carolyn today.
"That's all I needed."
At the end of the wedding, Chris and Carolyn changed into their "farewell" clothes and got into their car, a Ford Mustang, to drive away into the sunset, or at least into the new chapter of their lives.
Chris opened the passenger seat door for Carolyn and climbed into the driver's seat, as was the tradition.
"I get in the car and we're off. Everyone was waving and cheering, 'Bye, bye.' We turn the corner and out of sight. I get out of the car and she gets behind the wheel."
Chris didn't have a US driver's license yet, so Carolyn had to take the wheel.
From there, Chris and Carolyn settled into their life together in Oakland, California.
In 1975, they moved into the house where they raised their two children, and where they still live today.
50 years later
Chris and Carolyn, pictured on vacation in Jamaica, have been together for over 50 years.
Credit: Stacey Clarke
Today, Chris and Carolyn say they are proud to have raised international children, who enjoy their Dutch and American heritage, and who also have multicultural families of their own.
"We've raised them well, without any prejudice," says Chris.
The last 50 years have not been easy for Chris and Carolyn.
There were difficult and heartbreaking moments, such as when Carolyn suffered a miscarriage early in her marriage.
And then, when their children were young, Chris's job in the hospitality industry kept him at work until the wee hours of the morning, the couple like ships in the night.
Chris and Carolyn say they have tried very hard to ride the waves of life together over the decades.
"There are always ups and downs in any relationship, and of course, in ours, sometimes it didn't look so rosy, but we stuck it out," says Chris.
"You survive the hard times and then you're glad you did," Carolyn says.
"It's a compromise".
A few decades later, Carolyn and Chris have grandchildren.
Here they are with one of them.
The couple loves spending time with their family.
Courtesy of Chris and Carolyn De Vreeze
Today, the couple cherish memories of their journeys through Scandinavia on the bright yellow bus and look forward to the years they have shared together.
"50 years or so ago, it all happened so fast. Time goes by so fast it's over before you know it," says Chris.
But the couple hope there is more joy to come, they adore their grandchildren and love spending time with their family.
They are looking forward to celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary later this year.
Today, the couple believes that they bumped into each other on Carolyn's European excursion as fate.
"I loved her from day one and I still love her," says Chris.
"It was fate," Carolyn says.
"It was written".