Christian Bautista’s girl extends Phl stay

First, she fell in love with the guy. Now, she’s also fallen for his country.

Romanian looker Carla Dunareneu thought two weeks was all it would take to visit boyfriend Christian Bautista in the Philippines for the nth time. But it turned out that her latest visit to the country would take longer than usual.

Carla started getting offers, one of them a role in Regal Entertainment’s adult drama “The Bride & The Lover”, which topbills Jennlyn Mercaldo, Paulo Avelino and Lovi Poe.

So she extended her stay for several more months. Now, Carla has become “Filipinized.”

Filipino stomach

“My stomach has become completely Filipino,” she admits, smiling. Carla feasts on adobo and sinigang, dishes completely alien to her when she first met Christian in Singapore, where they did the Pan-Asian TV series “The Kitchen Musical.”

Carla even got herself a talent manager, Girlie Rodis, who will help her career take off in the Philippines.

And now that she’s in love with a Filipino, Carla feels blessed at finding someone she can share her deepest thoughts and feelings with.

“I think it’s really nice that we can talk for hours on end and really get along,” Carla gushes.

The romantic spark, she goes on, did not appear overnight. They started as friends.

Carla didn’t even know Christian is a singer.

“I had to look him up in the Net to see who he is.”

When she and Christian started feeling something more special was going on, they did their best to “separate the professional from the personal”.

So they didn’t officially become a couple until Feb. 14, after “The Kitchen Musical” wrapped up.

On her relationship with Christian

The relationship, Carla says, is “going great.”

Now that she’s staying longer in the Philippines, she is glad for the chance to “spend more time together (with Christian) and strengthen our relationship.”

Carla realizes this is something they can’t do when they live on opposite sides of the world.

“There’s only so much you can do when you’re overseas,” she explains.

Carla is just as excited at being directed by Joel Lamangan in “The Bride & The Lover.”

By Maridol Rañoa-Bismark | Yahoo! Southeast Asia Newsroom