Happy Honeymooning Day 4: All-Dude Roman "Rituals," Oysters, and Some World Wars

Tuesday, March 25th, 2025

6:53 PM

Heathrow Airport, UK

Our attempts to watch the new episode of White Lotus last night were a bust, since the UK does not have Max. Kenny tried valiantly, but the pirated streams we got would switch from English to languages ranging from Japanese to Portuguese to Hindi. We are not fluent enough in any of these languages to follow what was happening, so we will have to wait until we return to the US.

Today was our final day in London. I say "day" because our flight leaves in a little over an hour, so we were still able to get some London experiences in today. We started with the London Mithraeum, which was in the City of London neighborhood and which was rediscovered in 1954 and which has only been available for public viewing since 2018.

The London Mithraeum is definitely in my top three for educational experiences I've had (museums, temples, churches, etc). The only other experience I can confidently add to this list is the Actun Tunichil Muchnal (ATM) cave, which was used as a religious space for Mayan ritual human sacrifices. ANYWAY, this place first displayed a pretty cool temporary art installation that was mostly to showcase new artists. This one is called 0.1% by Jonathan Baldock -- a number which represents what percent of our genes are different from other humans. 

We then walked downstairs, because the Mithraeum is from 240 CE and therefore lower the Earth than present-day London. In fact, the Mithraeum, like the rest of Londonium, was abandoned when the Roman Empire left England in the 400s (one might say when the Roman Empire ended, but one would incur the wrath of Kenny, who insists that the Roman Empire continued in Constantinople until it fell in 1453, and one would have already had the same argument that he has had with his wife -- that's me -- who think it's can't really be called the Roman Empire if Rome isn't the capital, to which he would reply that they did consider themselves Roman, but I digress). London was rediscovered about 400 years later, and by that time, London was in ruins and had to be rebuilt in order to be used, and the Mithraeum was lost, buried by time and a good deal of the Earth's sediment.

Some artifacts were discovered by builders in 1889, but clearly nobody thought much of it, because nothing happened until after the Germans during the Battle of Britain did what could be arguably be called a very messy and imprecise excavation job. A decade later, more artifacts were found in the rubble, and a real excavation for the Mithraeum began in earnest.

Mithras was... well, they're not sure? There are ancient Mithraeums throughout Europe and even Northern Africa, even as far north as present-day Germany, which was never conquered by Rome. Mithras is always seen looking away as he sacrifices a bull (either a ritual or in war, not sure which). The cult only allowed men, and they would have elaborate rituals and feasts where participants would wear special clothing and masks.

Elaborate rituals with masks and only dudes. Hm.

However, the cool part was allowing us into an even deeper area, where the actual Mithraeum itself lived, and we got to experience a very cool and short reenactment (no human actors, which would have been uncomfortable and weird) of what a regular ritual might have felt like, including the Latin chanting. It was extremely awesome. Afterwards, we got to explore a little bit.

Kenny was extremely excited, because he actually learned something new about the Roman Empire, which was frankly something neither of us thought was possible.

Kenny very much loving the Mithraeum.

I also thought it was neato.

Lunch was at a place called Sweetings, which is known for its seafood. It wasn't open yet, so Kenny and I popped to a pub next door for a coffee. There, we met an older couple from just north of Sacramento who was visiting their granddaughter. They congratulated us on our honeymoon and told us they were celebrating 52 years together. The secret is partnership. You and your spouse are partners, and you can't forget that. 

They were very sweet.

When Sweetings opened, we had oysters again, and then Kenny ordered a grilled halibut and I got a fish pie.

Now, after this meal, my rankings for London meals differ from Kenny's. Here is Kenny's list:

7. The Phoenix

6. Barshu

5. Sweetings

4. Brasserie Zedel

3. The Savoy

2. Dishoom

1. Chishuru

And my list:

7. The Phoenix

6. Barshu

5. Brasserie Zedel

4. Sweetings

3. The Savoy

2. Dishoom

1. Chishuru

He was less than impressed with his halibut, but I thought my fish pie was incredible. 

I will talk about the Imperial War Museum, how efficient and easy the international terminal at Heathrow, and Kenny's request re: my ring, is next time I logon, but we are about to board our plane to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and so I must depart.

Wednesday, March 26th, 2025

9:07 AM

Addis Ababa Airport (Bole International Airport), Ethiopia

Well I've slept probably a total of 30 minutes since learning all about the Mithraeum, so that's great. Kenny is doing much better at roughly 3 hours of sleep.

Before I get into the cultural differences of being in an African airport for the first time, I think I'd like to finish off blogging about our London portion of the trip.

The Imperial War Museum was pretty interesting, and I'm really glad we went. It was in a part of town called Lambeth, farther south than we had been previously. We spent most of our time in the WWI section, which frankly is one of the time periods I'm most interested in. Kenny is more into antiquity, and I'm more into modern history (he was flabbergasted by this), and I especially find WWI to be fascinating, horrifying, and still extremely relevant today.

Going into the 20th century, 1/4 of the world population considered itself British. Literally one person out of every four people on this Earth was a Briton. Wild.

Pictures of people and places from different parts of the British Empire at the turn of the 20th century.

When all the Germanic nation-states unified under Bismarck in 1871, creating what we now know today as Germany, England assumed that they would get along like gangbusters since they both hated the French. However, the Germans decided they were also extremely into naval and military might, which was sort of the purview of the English, and Germany quickly created an alliance with Austro-Hungary and Italy, so England decided to form an alliance with France (WHAT THAT'S CRAZY) and, of all peoples, the Russians. When the Serbian freedom fighters/terrorists (depending on what side you're on) blew up Austro-Hungary's Franz Ferdinand and his embarrassingly common wife (his family was furious he married below his station, as her family was barely even part of the aristocracy), the Austrians decided they needed to invade Serbia. Serbia asked Russia for help, so Russia did, but they only really had the one war plan and were incapable of straying from it -- troops sent not just to Austro-Hungary's borders, but Germany's as well. A very cool part of all this is that Tsar Nicholas II and Kaiser Wilhelm I were cousins, with Queen Victoria of England serving as their grandmother and King George V of England as yet another cousin. 

Anyway, Russia sent troops to Austria and Germany because they only had the one war plan, Germany got mad and decided to implement their ONLY ONE WAR PLAN, which meant (obviously) invading Belgium, and the rest of Western Europe was horrified that a country they looked to for being on the cutting edge of culture and politics and the world stage in general decided to ignore international agreements and commit these atrocious acts of brutality and oh my god I'm shaking with too many emotions I don't want to name -- what world are my unborn children to inherit?

Something I appreciated was how each part of the British Empire had different hats to signify where they were from. 

Australia on the left, India on the right.

Something I thought was pretty stupid, and the US did this too (not just England), was decide that only white men were good for fighting. Racism is really dumb because one of the stereotypes about Black people was that they didn't feel pain like white people do, and yet... they weren't good enough to be soldiers? Make that make sense, because that hurts my brain.

Colonies, help us out!

Anyway, this all happened over a century ago and thus will never happen, so we walked through the exhibit that took us through the 4 years of WWI, including the total war effort that started in 1916 and when tanks were introduced in the same year. 

We reached the Easter Uprising of 1916, when the Irish Republicans tried to overthrow British rule while the Brits were preoccupied with, you know, a World War, but that did not go as planned, and the leaders of the revolution were brutally executed. I had known about this, but I didn't realize the Germans were helping the Irish. Just like they did the Bolsheviks in 1917.

"It's kinda smart, even if it only worked in Russia," I mentioned to Kenny.

"Well..." Kenny laughed. "Did it work in Russia though? Because, um, what happened 20 years later?"

"Oh, okay. It worked in the short term though."

We reached the end of the exhibit, where they mentioned the aftermath of WWI. Gertrude Bell, who worked for England in the Middle East, mentioned that England had no idea what it was doing there post-WWI and that it was going to mess everything up way worse than it had been before WWI. This was accurate! Correct, Gertrude! We are still dealing with this!

"You know, as a kid, I didn't get why they didn't attack Hitler sooner. Obviously, the war was inevitable. But as I get older, and after living through a pandemic, I understand it a lot more. Who wants to live through that more than once? Why can't everyone just be chill? If we ignore it, will it go away?"

"Yeah, it was only 20 years later," Kenny replied.

"But there is one man who was always ready to fight," I pointed out as a read a blurb about a particular British politician raring to use military force on a riot in 1926 England.

Winston Churchill.

"Yeah, he was with the shits," Kenny agreed.

I don't think he was always "with the shits" because his approach was always "how dare you not want to do whatever the Empire says, here, have some violence," but maybe Kenny and I just disagree on that front.

We spent some time walking through the WWII part of the museum, got some reusable water bottles for our jungle time in Zanzibar that's coming up, and then headed to our hotel to get to the airport.

Heathrow, despite dealing with a complete shutdown less than a week ago and being the 4th busiest airport in the world, took about 20 minutes to check our luggage and get through security. LAX is hot garbage.

As we walked to our gate, Kenny wanted a favor.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Can you put your engagement ring away when we're in Zanzibar? I don't want us to look like bigger marks than we already are."

"Oh. Yeah. Great idea. Also, we are definitely already marks because we are American."

"Yeah, that's my point."

I put my engagement ring away right then (still have my wedding ring on, but that should be fine), and then we walked about 3 miles to the gate (not really, but it felt that way). We got on the flight, and a woman was in my middle seat. I chose a middle seat for myself and gave Kenny the window seat on his request because he is, oh, 10 inches taller than me, and so it makes much more sense for me to take the middle.

"I think that's our seat," I said. "I think you're in the aisle."

"Oh! No, I have the window seat," she replied.

I triple checked that we got a window seat since that's what Kenny wanted. We definitely had a window seat. But hey, everyone gets confused.

"No, we have the window seat," I explained calmly. 

"Are you sure?" she asked. "Because 36A is the aisle seat. 36C is the window."

That doesn't even alphabetically make sense, but hey, maybe she's just confused.
"I'm happy to get a flight attendant over to double check," I offered.

"Oh, no, that's okay. I think, anyway, I forgot something, so..." she trailed off as she went farther back in the plane. Kenny and I sat down, and sure enough, the window seat is clearly labeled 36A. 

She never came back, so she must have found another seat, and Kenny and I had a whole row to ourselves.

And now we sit in the Addis Ababa airport, waiting for our flight to Zanzibar. I picked up a t-shirt for $8 to make sure my shoulders were covered, and Kenny and I got breakfast. Kenny looked around with a very serious, thoughtful expression.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Looking around... seeing everyone here... I'm not different. This is the first time I've ever been just an American."

Oh, I'm so glad we decided to honeymoon in Africa.

It says "Beautiful Ethiopia."

Fresh half-orange, energy drink, and red wine? I was not brave enough to try it.