Cuban actress, Valerie Cruz (Dexter, True Blood)is feeling like she’s on top of the world right now. Not only does the 34-year-old actress have a lead role in ABC’s highly anticipated medical drama, Off the Map (premiering January 12th from Executive Producer, Shonda Rhimes) she recently got engaged!

“It just kind of happened at Christmas,” an excited Cruz tells Latina.com exclusively. “You’re the first publication I’ve told!” Cruz says she’s thrilled to have a special guy in her life “for a change,” and says she’s learning a lot about his culture. “He’s English and he’s from London, so it’s an interesting journey,” she explains. “Cultural differences – they are definitely vast in some ways. But I think that Europeans in general have a more global view of the world because they are in such proximity to other countries that it enables them to travel and see other parts of the world.”