How can I do something romantic for my girlfriend? (see details)

Include in your letters to her a kind of game. I imagine something like taking an extreme close up of an object you are both familiar with and asking her to guess what it is. You would reveal it at the appropriate time. You may have to take more than one picture of it from different angles or showing different close ups of different sections.

The object of the pictures could be a leaf in a park you both enjoyed. Or a sculpture at a museum you both visited. Or a dish of some food you both like.

Send her a modern-day mix tape. Love songs that make you think of her, “your” songs, etc.

You are indeed brave and daring to put yourself out there, like that. I only tried once to maintain a LDR and it was already established and lacking the challenges you have.
For what it’s worth he sent me little emails at work despite the fact we talked almost every day, ranging from interesting articles of topics we shared, to bits of humor, to little cameos of the stuff he was doing, he also told me about the friends he was making and I talked to a few if they happened to be there. In fact letting her know about the things you enjoy about where you live the people little cameo’s might make the transition easier for her. She is leaving behind everything she knows and entering a foreign one, some people might find that hard no matter how they hate the prior life. So having background info given in tiny snippets would be marvelous.

He also sent me music videos of people he listened to locally and liked.

I kept him update on his friends, and since I knit filled requests for him, his sister asked for a knitted bikini and I ended up sending quite a few. I sent him pictures of plants he had started and how the paint job on the apartment turned out that we had started, as well as cute videos of the kitten we picked out together. He helped me name her as I described him to her. I knew he wanted a pull up bar and installed one as well as giving him hilarious ancedotal stories to the troubles.
We started a book together and discussed it, just things kept us sharing something.
I don’t know if this is helpful it’s a free flow of thought that will hopefully trigger good ideas.

her parents can not find out that we are still together, as we are planning to run off in secret some time in the next few months and get married.

Friend, I don’t think this is going to end well for you.

Would it be possible to show up in her country, meet her for coffee and get married? Go to a hotel, consummate the marriage, and THEN go say “Hi” to her parents? What would they do?

@nikipedia With all respect, you are very mistaken.

The flights are booked, the marriage papers have been sources, translated, and notarized. There is a secret moonlight-escape plan in place, and we are just waiting on a graduation for it to all happen.

@snowberry That is not a possibility. Her parents will never accept us, they have racism issues. They are not exactly nice people. However, the first part of your suggestion is possible, but I’m afraid her parents have had their chance and blown it. We have tried on many occasions to get them to be accepting, and they don’t. That is exactly why she suggested to me that we run off and elope. By June or July, they will be 8000 miles away and wont be a problem.

Could you write her a song and surprise her with it the next time you Skype?

Maybe do a few silly things like dress up for your talks, paint a message on your face…

Just have light-hearted stuff planned to help her shed some stress while she spends time with you via technology.

@SpatzieLover Singing is more scary than a knife fight to me, but I will give it some though. A song does sound romantic.

Make a drawing (or get some dolls or stuffed animals that represent you and her) take a photo every day of the figures getting closer and closer together. You could have the photos taken on top of a map of the world. You would be presenting her with the anticipation of ultimately being together.

If you are able to snail mail her a letter (without the future in laws finding out) put on some lipstick (be brave, we know you secretly want to try it anyway LOL) and kiss a page, then send it to her and tell her that any time she is feeling lonely that she can kiss your lips. If you wear a particular cologne, spritz some of that onto the page as well.

Send her a stone, or a vial full of soil from where you are, so that she can touch the ground where you have walked.

Send her a lock of your hair.

Make some sweet comic drawings of your longing feelings for her.

Play the “getting to know you” game with her. You ask a question, such as: What is your favorite flower? She answers and you tell her your favorite flower. Then she asks you a question back and so on and so forth, every single day. You might learn some stuff about her that you never even thought about.

Sample questions:

Would you prefer to take a long hot bath or a long hot shower?

What fruit would you prefer to eat off of my bare chest?

What three songs make you think of our relationship?

What are your favorite condiments and what do you think of condoms?

What is your ultimate romantic vacation destination, give details?

Would you rather that I read a romantic story to you or give you a foot rub?

Do you like to have your feet rubbed? Is there another place on your body that you would like to have rubbed that I may have overlooked?