Eastern Hemisphere . . . Here we come!!!

Well, we decided that we needed a break from our BIG weekend get-aways . . . so, we decided to just go and visit the "Eastern Hemisphere" for the morning!

...So, we headed out for Greenwich park in London. What a HUGE and beautiful park it was too!
Crossing over the Greenwich meridian line into the eastern hemisphere was a very monumental moment. At least Jared thought so until we realized that we had already crossed over the line (without knowing it) while walking through the park to get into the museum. Oops!!!
We REALLY enjoyed the Royal Observatory museum! It was really cool to learn how they figured out how to work out the "longitude problem." We also enjoyed seeing and learning about the amazing clocks they had there.

Later in the afternoon we went and visited the Natural History museum. Maybe we do come from monkeys after all - Can't you see the resemblance?
We were pretty tired so we only spent an hour or two there before heading next door to the Science museum. It was pretty cool to see how technology has changed and developed as the years have gone by. I especially liked seeing the progression from horse and buggy to the modern day automobile!Their flight exhibit was also really neat to look through!
We enjoyed our day in London again and this time had a much better dinner experience there! By the way, Brian - guess what Jared had for lunch? Bratwurst and saurkraut! Yum!

We also purchased theatre tickets for later in the week, so stayed tuned . . . .

Love you all!

Traditional English Meal (blood not included)

(FYI. If this blog loads slow or doesn't load all the images, try it with the "www" as in http://www.jaredandallyson.blogspot.com)

A few weeks ago, after only two weeks of being in England, we were invited to a ward member's house for dinner. We were excited to get to know this older couple, but we were also kind of nervous because we didn't know what to expect for dinner. Before we left Utah everyone warned us about the English cooking and told us to steer clear of anything with "blood" or "pudding" in the name.

As we drove to this couple's house, we tried to prepare ourselves to be grateful and polite. I made up my mind that I would eat whatever they served...no matter what. For those with a weak stomach, read on at your own risk :) (j/k)

While we waited for dinner to cook, the couple's granddaughter brought out a list of what was on the menu for dinner. Most everything on the list sounded great--baked chicken, roasted potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, roasted parsnips. One thing on the list though made me a little anxious--Yorkshire pudding. There it was...pudding. Immediately, my imagination kicked in. What was this pudding, and where is Yorkshire anyway? Does it have anything to do with strange animal body parts?

Well, anyone who knows what a Yorkshire pudding is knows I shouldn't have been worried at all. A Yorkshire pudding is like roll, but tastes more like the pastry part of an eclair. In all honesty, the meal was DELICIOUS! So good, in fact, we've made the same meal at home twice since. So anyone planning on coming to visit, pack your bags and come hungry!

Biking Brecon Beacons - Try to say that 5 times fast!

So, you're back for more of the Chronicles of Jared & Allyson, eh? This weekend's adventure was thrown together at the last minute, but Allyson did an awesome job!

Jared & I decided last week that we needed something a little more "active" this weekend. We had no idea what we were really getting ourselves into. (But then again, do we ever?)

We drove early Saturday morning about three hours over into South Wales. We had found a National Park there call the Brecon Beacons National Park and had called to reserve bikes for the day on Saturday.

We were really excited to get going, but immediately found that it was really cold (and foggy) when we started in the morning. I actually wondered if my fingers, toes, nose, and ears were going to freeze off - Luckily no body parts were lost in the making of our weekend adventures!

It was so amazing because we just road along small roads and paths through the countryside. There were canals and rivers along a lot of the paths and beautiful flields of sheep and cottages along the way too. Jared even enjoyed our journey even though it was all very "quaint" (especially because a bike was involved)!

Our turn around point was at Talybont Reservoir, but we didn't leave right away. It was so beautiful and the temperature had risen to a piping 50 degrees so we had to stay and relax and enjoy the scenery!

We also really enjoyed seeing all the sheep! I don't really think that they say "baa baa" after all. (At least the Welsh ones don't.) I think it's more like "maa maa." At one point Jared wanted to pet them and we stopped and tried to lure the sheep to come over. You should have heard him! He even tried to call them with the chant from the movie "Babe." (Baa Ram Ewe, Baa Ram, Ewe . . . ) When that didn't work he asked them to "Come Follow Me" but that didn't work either. He was disappointed that he didn't get to touch one, but hopefully he'll get an opportunity another time. (I think I made him feel jealous, because one of the sheep did let me touch him.)

On our way back to Brecon we stopped in another village at the local pub. I ate fish and chips and Jared had sausage and chips. I have never even heard of that option on a menu, but it was really good!

All in all, we were gone biking from about 10:30 - 5:00. (So while most of you were sleeping on the other side of the world we were biking like crazy - You snooze, you lose! J/K)
Anyway, it was a beautiful, more relaxing day than some of the others. The only crazy part was that we still returned home exhausted and with sore backsides!

Love you all!

Cheers!