On Monday, the Bank Holiday (the Englishman’s excuse for a day off) I met up with Catherine, Marie’s sister. It was nice having a tour guide, especially for locating the best pubs!

We met at London Tower Station and went to a pub along the Thames River. Honestly I don’t remember the name of that pub, it wasn’t the one that impressed me the most. But we did get to sit outside for a bit until the wind chased us inside.

After a beer there we walked to the Tate Modern, the national museum of modern art. It was packed (holiday + decent weather = wall to wall people). We didn’t stay long because the volume of people made it hard to navigate. The best display we saw was a series of drawings in chalk on blackboards by Tacita Dean. Very cool. The picture on their website isn’t of the best of the series either.

From there we took a bus (yes, a double-decker) to covent garden. Covent garden is a large, very old market area with loads of shops and storefronts and on a holiday, packed with tourists. From there we headed off for another beer.

I’m not sure what was the best part of the pub; the fact that we had to walk down some narrow alley to get to it, or that I had to stoop to get through all the doorways, or that the bar was the heavy oak you’d expect from a great bar, or quite possibly its history of bare-knuckle boxing. Whatever it was, I loved the place. There is a placard inside that gives a quick history of poets and boxers frequenting the bar and its old nickname was the ‘bucket of blood’ because of a famous (infamous) fight in the small alleyway outside the bar.

We had two beers here, I had two Waggledance ales and she had two Lowenbraus, after-which we needed some food to soak up the alcohol, so we went to Itsu sushi bar in London’s Soho. The sushi was good and was served on a conveyer that snaked around the bar and you just pluck off what you want. They count your plates at the end to decide what you pay. The seared tuna was awesome but no mackerel was to be found.

From there we went to Fopps music store. I hadn’t planned on getting anything because on Saturday I went to a music shop in Carnaby, near Oxford Circus Station and spent way too much money on CD’s. But Fopps had a new CD I’d been wanting so I caved. I’m weak. soooo weak.

We meant to finish the evening with a coffee but I’ll be damned if all the coffee shops were closed early, so we went to a bar and I braved an Irish coffee. Marie, you’ll be happy to note that you’re still the reigning queen of the Irish coffee.

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