Monday, May 7th

... is May day, a "bank holiday" and socialist day off (at least as far as I understand it).

Someone told me last week that it was basically a holiday for civil servants and finalcial serviced employees.

BBC weather sucks as a weather forecasting service.  They predicted an entire day of clear weather.  And it was gorgeous and sunny when we headed out on the bus to Primrose Hill.  It's one of the highest natural spots in the city and from the top, we had a great view down to London.  But, it was also raining by the time it took for our bus to get us there (maybe 20 minutes).  We saw 30 or 40 dogs out with their owners.  We can't imagine either of our dogs having willingly adopted to a rain soaked lifestyle as these dogs apparently have to.  Seemed like an area with lots of smaller dogs. 

So, we decided after Primrose Hill to wander the neighborhood, looking at the types of houses that were in the area.  Came to Regents Park Road (we'd planned this) which had 2-3 blocks of shopping and restaurants.  By then the rain had fully stopped and we'd put our umbrellas away.  We found a nice little place and decided to have some breakfast (at 11:30am).  Outdoors.  Luckily, we'd picked the place with a very robust set of umbrellas covering their patio.  Luckily because, by the time we were done eating it was raining (robustly) again.  We decided to bail out on more walking around and headed for the bus stop and home.

A couple hours at home and it was time to go out again (sun shining).  We hopped the bus that was just pulling away from our stop (the bus driver was very nice to stop and re-open the doors for us!).  Went to Belgravia.  Turns out it is the embassies neighborhood, which Maxine found fascinating.  We walked north and west through Belgravia and in the general direction back towards our apartment.  Managed to find Pierre Herme again, so Maxine was able to get a few more macarons -- her dessert for dinner. 

Stopped in at Harrods and decided we really did need to give their food another chance (we'd had it the first night we were in London and weren't particularly impressed).  So, plans for later in the week to make the 5 minute walk back to pick up some dinner.

Did have dinner at home.  Salad and Cornish pasties (meat pies) -- which Maxine had picked up at Borough Market.  Then out for another session of pub research.  This one was called Euston Tap.  The bad news -- absolutely NO charm at all.  A fairly small room/building just outside the rail station.  The good news -- an EXCELLENT beer selection, and one that they change very frequently.  For our first round, Maxine had Bristol Beer Factory's Milk Stout (they changed the tap out just after we got it!).  I had Arbor Brewing's Zeus which was a dry hopped IPA.  Nice, but fairly American-style.  For our next round, Maxine had Orchard Pig's Cider.  I had Summertime Brewing's Saison du Pont.  I should mention that across the road from Euston Tap is Euston cider.  Unfortunately not open tonight (see "bank holiday"), they have 15 ciders on tap.  So, while this isn't a particularly quaint place, the tap selection is honestly world class.