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Buns2025: Day 13 – Belfast
Soundtrack: “Down among the dead men”, Flash and the Pan Titanic. But first, the quest for breakfast. I wanted to find whatever a traditional Northern Ireland breakfast was, to collect the full set. With no handy potato cake company to be found, I went seeking a pub or traditional looking café, though hindered by my eSIM being slow and crap. I was further hindered by NI licensing laws, that mean pubs don’t open until 11.30am on weekdays, something I learned from a chap who was tidying the footpath seating of a pub I found. He told me that the couple of Aussies they had on staff also thought the 11.30am…
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Buns2025: Day 13 – Dublin > Belfast
Soundtrack: “Teenage Kicks”, The Undertones One last morning in Dublin, time for breakfast and last minute shopping. I made the rookie breakfast mistake of trying somewhere different, and not the Potato Cake Company. The result was an okay, but definitely not as good full irish, that lacked personality and character. It’s a travel dilemma, do you keep going back to a place that you know is good, or try different places to get a feel for what the food is like in general. I like to try mixing it up most of the time, but admit there are risks. Saw a very tall spire, called “The Spire”, though not sure…
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Buns2025: Day 12 – Dublin & Cork, mostly Cork
Soundtrack: “Irish Rover”, The Pogues Miraculously awoke with functioning hearing. Dublin’s public transport includes buses and trams (there might be suburban trains too but as I’m not needing to go to far haven’t looked into these). It also has two major train stations for Irish Rail services to other towns and cities, if you want to head south it’s Heuston, north is Connolly. Both stations are named after folks who fought in the 1916 uprising, where while the Irish lost, the UK leaders were basically assholes and their heavy handed response improved support for the independence movement. Today I’m heading south, so Heuston it is. It’s a pretty station, not…
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Buns2025: Day 11 – Dublin
Soundtrack: “To here knows when”, My Bloody Valentine Well I kinda managed to take it easy today. Started off with breakfast near the banks of the Liffey at the Irish Potato Cake Company, who even though they were flat out (apparently South African rugby fans like potato cakes, who knew) put together a decent full Irish breakfast. Potato cakes filled with beef and bacon and cheese, black pudding, grey/white pudding, fried egg, soda bread, beans, accompanied by a pot of strong tea. Not bad indeed. While I’m yet to sample a full Northern Irish breakfast, I will say that I think across the British Isles the full Scottish is the…
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Buns2025: Day 10 – Paris > Dublin
Soundtrack: “Army of Me”, Bjork/808 State Woke early with a mission to get my laundry done before hotel checkout. Part of the reason for picking this hotel was the close proximity to the laundromat, as clean underwear for me is as essential as nicotine to the locals. I felt like a seasoned traveller being able to navigate the weird central payment thing without assistance, which is good because, aside from a small gang of school kids who were using the space as shelter from the morning drizzle, I was the only one there. It was an untidy pack, the clean laundry bag just went straight into the case, but there’s…
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Buns2025: Day 9 – Paris
Soundtrack: “Red red wine”, Neil Diamond Last full day in Paris, a day to madly run around the Ile de la Cite mostly. The sore throat turned into an irritating dry cough without much effort, certainly not helped by it being pretty frigid cold (daytime temps hitting a balmy maximum of 6 degrees) plus never being more than about 1 metre from someone smoking. Time for evaluating a couple of stereotypes. Does everyone in Paris smoke? Pretty much. Certainly more than many other places I’ve been. Vapers carry a powerbank so they can recharge their suckers. Smoking seems to be banned from inside public buildings, so every doorway is crowded…
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Buns2025: Day 8 – Paris
Soundtrack: “Cemetery Gates”, The Smiths Sadly it seems the crowds in the Metro have got me, and I can feel the first hints of getting a cold. The Paris Metro system, generally seems to work okay, once you work out how the ticketing goes. Took me a while, it all hinges on little paper cards that can be recharged. In theory it can work on phones, but after installing one app, then the app that needed, then yet another app that something needed, I hit a wall of it also seeming to want me to create another account for something else. So instead I found a machine that would spit…
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Buns2025: Day 7 – Paris
Soundtrack: something old and French It’s another day for cool art, this time from the last 200 years or so at the Musee d’Orsay. I’m finding my French comprehension to be a little better when I see things like that and don’t bother to pause at the apostrophe, so it’s Musee dOrsay, and he apostrophe is just for show. Speaking of just for show, the Musee d’Orsay used to be a train station. When they decided they didn’t need it anymore, there obviously weren’t any rich property developers around to turn it into a bunch of overpriced shoebox apartments, so they put a bunch of art in there instead. With…
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Buns2025: Day 6 – Paris
Soundtrack: “Never can say goodbye”, The Communards I have Louvred. Somehow I managed to get up early (probably due to my body not yet knowing what time it’s supposed to be) and headed down to that big old museum. Stopped for breakfast at an artisanal boulangerie, where I couldn’t decide if I wanted the croissant or the the pain au chocolat so I went for both. And they both were very nice, either dunked or undunked. I’m still not converted. Does dunking add something to the croissant? Not really if it’s fresh. Does it add anything to the coffee? Nope. I booked a 9.30am admission so when I wandered to…
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Buns2025: Day 5 – Paris
Soundtrack – anything but “Candles in the Wind” It never fails to amaze me how badly the worlds of accommodation and travel fail to to be in sync. Flights arrive all the time, but most hotels only let you check in between about 2pm and 1am. You might be able to store your luggage, but I’m yet to find a hotel that will let me check in at 8am or 9am, even if I do offer to book a full extra day (I won’t rule out that there may be places of the 5 star variety allowing this, and if I ever get to the point of being ablke to…
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Buns2025: Day 4 – Airports & Paris
Soundtrack: “This Flight Tonight”, Joni Mitchell It’s a 15 hour flight from Sydney to Doha, then another 6 to Paris. I’m not sure I fully worked this out when I booked the trip, I was more just being amused that the journey started at a Charles (Kingsford-Smith) and ended at a Charles (de Gaulle). I’ve done the 18+ hour Singapore to Newark, but that was Premium Economy, where this time around it was just economy of the common variety. Fortunately, between the early-ish night and the subsequent sleep-in, I got almost a human amount of sleep. This gave me plenty of time to pack and finish the b log, helped…
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Buns2025: Day 3 – Melbourne > Sydney
Soundtrack: “Best Years of Our Lives” – Richard Clapton Day started on too little sleep, what a surprise. At least part of the late night was me packing, so there would be no last minute panic there. Fortunately the reason for the early morning was to catch up with one of my oldest pals A, who is very particular when it comes to coffee so wherever he picked to meet would be good. He’s also vegan, so while I was guarded about any food recommendations, at least the coffee would be good. His pick was a little coffee and bagle place called Five Points, where a large coffee comes in…
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Buns2025: Day 2 – Melbourne
Soundtrack: “Under the Clocks”, Weddings Parties Anything Finally made it to day 2. Currently sitting in the airport departure terminal, watching a dog get unloaded from a flight and I’m only a little damp around the eyes. Day 2 kicked off with heading to my usual cafe, Euro Lane I think it’s called, tucked away in a little alley between Flinders and Collins, that for a number of years now have done some amazing middle-eastern/spanish breakfast options, piles of turkish bread, spicy beans, eggs, and the like. It’s been the staple for a few years now. I last enjoyed their wonderful plates of goodness when I was here in June.…
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Buns2025: Day 1.2 – Melbourne (again)
Soundtrack: “Flame Trees”, Cold Chisel Well shit. I wrote the Day 1.1 entry from the Virgin Lounge at Melbourne airport, while waiting for my flight back to Perth. Possible the less said the better about the food there: very ordinary machine coffee, a chicken wrap that looked to be 50-50 chicken to salad, but the chicken rapidly tapered out leaving salad, and a “Moroccan tagine” that was neither. MYO sandwich fillings were cheese and/or tomato. I was heading home to say a final goodbye to my unsung travel support, Billie the staffy-cross, who we’d always try to pack sneakily to avoid her inevitable disappointment when we went travelling without her;…
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Buns2025 – Day 1.1 Melbourne
Soundtrack: “Pink Pony Club”, Chappell Roan Mick Thomas wrote, “There’s no point writing postcards on your bad days” (and I probably owe him a fiver for the number of times I’ve quoted it) and as far as bad days go, today is on the list. But I have time to spare, a need for a distraction, so I’m going to write this about yesterday instead. Welcome to Buns2025, the next trip. Perth > Melbourne > Sydney > Paris > Dublin > Belfast > Singapore. A trip of much food, music, sights, sounds, smells, and much entertainment as I attempt the French language. In looking for a theme to tie it…
