Once Upon a Trunki Has a New Home!!!

To make your Trunki blog experience, we've moved the Trunki blog to Wordpress and changed the name. Once Upon a Trunki is now Tales of a Travelista. You'll still get the same great tips and tales but now with a wider range of product reviews, help for parents and travel ideas. I hope you enjoy the new site!!

Click below to get to the new site
Tales of a Travelista

Fun on the Road

Tomorrow we're having a family first. We're taking a bus to New York. We've never taken a long bus ride before so this should be interesting. I was poking around looking for some way of keeping Maya entertained and came across a great article at greatschools.net. The article is Are We There Yet? Travel Games for the Road and has loads of great ideas for games and things to do. Things like counting games, word games, guessing games, etc. Hopefully some of these will help us pass the time. Take a gander and pick up some ideas for your next road trip!

WORLD CUP BABY!!!!!!!

YESSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's official! We have World Cup tickets!!!!!! I shaking with delight right now!! I've done my happy dance! I've even told some poor guy at the credit card company that he totally made my day! The second I called and heard that FIFA had charged our card I let out with a scream of girlish hooligan glee! Man I can't WAIT!!!!!!!!! Football RULES!!!!

I'll try to contain myself for the rest of the day. Im not sure if I can though!

So close, yet so far: New U.S. Travel policy for Cuba

Foiled again! While Im very glad that our new administration has decided to lift travel restrictions for U.S. citizens of Cuban descent, Im really bummed out that they did not lift the travel restrictions for U.S. citizens of non-Cuban descent. I mean really, is buying trinkets and eating at restaurants THAT bad. I know that Castro was oppressive and I understand the reason for the embargo. But, it's also been 40 years. The people in my generation are so much more global and I think most of us will agree that any regulation birthed during the Cold War is pretty outdated and way too rigid. There are other ways of disagreeing with a country's policies.

Yeah, yeah I can get there by going to Toronto first, but that method is on the shady side and I've already got dings for going to China, Turkey, Egypt, and probably Tunisia. Plus I want my stamp lol. I'm weird that way.

Oh well. The important thing is that now our Cubano citizens can go see their family...and bring back more of their yummy recipes!

The Young Family European Extravaganza!

That's right folks, Clark Griswold's gonna have nothing on us after this summer's invasion of western Europe by the Young family. Thankfully we're much more adept at perusing European culture and will most certainly not be donning any cheesy berets with our names embroidered on them. BUT we're going all out on this trip. Our final city list is *drumroll*

Cologne, Germany
Luxembourg City, Luxembourg *NEW COUNTRY*
Strasbourg, France
Basel, Switzerland
Zurich, Switzerland
Somewhere in Lichtenschtein *NEW COUNTRY*
Paris, France
Brussels, Belgium *NEW COUNTRY*
Brugges, Belgium
Amsterdam, Netherlands *NEW COUNTRY*

And I'm sure there will be a few more thrown in there for good measure. Im very excited about hitting Paris again because our last trip was taken before digital cameras hit it big and our pictures look like we went there in 1975. As an example:

Seriously, this looks like it should be a picture of my mom. Thankfully we've upgraded. There has even been talk of renting a fancy schmancy wide angle lens just for the trip. Say it with me "oooooooh, ahhhhhhh."

We're hoping to keep Maya's spirits up by waving tickets to EuroDisney in her face like a carrot. I'll be keeping my spirits up by keeping our travel cooler stocked to the brim with yummy cheese, bread, and cured meats. Mmmmmm, cured meat. *droooooo* What? Huh? Oh I got lost in a meat daydream. Sorry.

As a final note, I would like to apologize for my three week hiatus. Josh was gone for a week in Guatemala and, well, my mind got pretty fried before, during, and after his absence. Work has been insanely busy and frankly has been sucking the life out of me. Then Josh was gone and, well, lets just say my brain stopped functioning there for a while. Im hopefully back on track now! Hopefully.

OH! And I am so happy to report that for the FIRST TIME EVER I saw a Trunki in an American luggage store. My heart burst with joy at the sight of it. Im so happy that it's finally making it's way over the pond! Good luck to Rob and the gang. I hope it catches on!