Some Highlights/Rich

*All of us falling asleep in incredibly uncomfortable positions and immediately regretting our choice to sleep in the car whilst in Iceland.

*This drive, though. Can't say enough about how pretty the drive is, all the time. I don't think we've been out of sight of a mountain the entire time, and most of the time we also have the ocean, glaciers, or some sheep-laden fields with us as well:

*The many iterations of Evan's snores, ranging from hisses to snarls and including a lot of moans.

*Zeke and I contemplating the advent of a potential second blog called "Evan doing Mundane Things" after watching him interact with TSA agents, buy food, look out the windows of the car, and generally exist.

*Us failing miserably to pronounce the names of various things, including "Eyjafjallajokull", "Vatnsleysufoss", and "Myvatn" (except add in a couple of unfamiliar letters also, if you're talking about road signs or our GPS).

*Us forgetting to fill up our water bottles at the airport, leading to a sleep-deprived search for agua that may or may not have included some hallucinations BUT also led us to a random gas station in the middle of nowhere, which of course contained a local hiking trail and led us to this:

*The many quirks of Iceland, including: a bunch of octagon fences that we have to assume are for sheep MMA fighting, grocery stores that are open from 10 AM to 6 PM, gas stations which are open about the same hours and 50% of which are legitimately owned by Pepsi Max, lots of single-pass bridges which we have been asserting our alpha-car dominance over, absolutely zero bodies of water with acceptable temperatures for bathing (which may or may not have been part of our original plan of sleeping in the car for a week), and sunrises that come around 3 in the morning and nicely guided our first few hours of driving.

*Various landscapes that look like Mars, including the following:

*Plenty of games of Spades, almost always accompanied by some disgruntled tension afterwards and a lot of fist bumps (sure to escalate soon to chest bumps) for the winning team.

-Rich

The First Few Hours

We arrived at the Reagan National Airport in DC on the 28th for our first flight to Boston. Rich and I stumbled around with our big bags as Zeke and Evan laughed at inability to pack light. We went through security relatively easily after Rich was antagonized by the TSA agents for dropping his bags too far away from them and making them come get it. While waiting for our flight we played a quick game of spades and Zeke spotted Michael Ian Black, star of such films as Run Fat Boy Run and Hell Baby. 

When we arrived in Boston we realized we only had an hour and a half until our next flight and it was in a separate terminal. Evan quickly took up the alpha male position, walking 8-10 feet in front of the rest of us, in order to speed us along. We got to the gate with plenty of time for us to exchange our money and for Rich to waste some of his money on two pieces of Sbarro Stuffed Pizza which looked delicious and tasted like armpit. On a side note, the exchange rate makes you feel pretty badass as 1 dollar is 100 krona, until you realize how goofy the pictures on their bills are. 

On the flight Zeke, Evan, and I were lucky enough to be seated next to each other. Really it was not luck at all, it was planned so that none of us had to deal with Rich's inevitable back sweat and giant limbs. Unluckily, however, we were seated behind a family of fat demon children in all denim outfits. Throughout the flight the children would take turns yelling at their mother who was too busy watching 300 to hear them. Interestingly, although we got to choose our own movies, this woman would cover her eyes during all  the sex and fighting scenes in the movie, which I believe is 90% of the film. Approximately four hours into our flight Zeke and I reached our breaking points. I would shush them when they yelled and Zeke would smack their hands when they reached back and poked our TV. 

The 5 hour flight flew by, pun intended, and we touched down outside of Reykjavik at around midnight. In the airport we stopped to get food, Rich sticking to the familiar with something titled the "Pepperoni Taco," while I ordered a smoked lamb sandwich. After chowing down we headed to the customs desk where Evan was aggressively polite to the customs agent, belligerently respectful you could say. For some reason the customs agent asked Rich if he was our caretaker, when in actuality the exact opposite is the case. The rental car agent met us after the baggage claim, took us to our car, and unhelpfully suggested that the best thing in his entire nation was the nightlife in Reykjavik. Midnight in Iceland has the lighting of like 8 o'clock in the U.S. so we took our car and started driving north on Highway 1, something called the Ring Road, which goes all the way around the outside of the nation. The sun started to come up at around 2 AM, just as I fell asleep in the backseat for the first of many times. 

-Tirrill

A Cross-Atlantic Flight/Zeke

If you were able to suffer through Rich’s preliminary thoughts, you'll have noticed that – as part of an early effort to assert dominance over the group – he claimed that I will “inevitably” refuse to write anything for the blog. This is an absurd claim, and I will not stand for such nonsense. In the hopes of quelling such outright balderdash, I've put together a post detailing what I envision will occur on our cross-Atlantic flight:

With a series of thunderous forward plods, Rich will enter the cabin and begin chatting with one of the stewardesses, but will be interrupted by a phone call from his mother reminding him to take his Dramamine, “and please for the love of god don’t soil your Depends in public again.”

After settling into his aisle seat, Evan will stretch his bum leg out, obstinately refusing to move despite the requests of travelers eager to make it to their seats.

Eventually obstructing the path of the beverage cart, Evan’s inconveniently-placed leg will first set off a series of social imbroglios, including but not limited to: the spillage of Diet Sierra Mist all over his chambray shirt, a tense standoff with a swarm of chin-strapped hardbodies, and uncomfortable eye contact with a man wearing horn-rimmed glasses and “sporting a Henman.”

Performing his best Jon Taffer impression, Zeke will loudly rack his brain trying to find a concept for better leg room, simultaneously annoying the man in front of him and bringing himself immense delight.

Tirrill, asked by a stewardess whether he would like “another pack of pretzels,” will become sensitive and angrily chastise her for making fun of his weight. “It’s muscle!” he will yell, causing the hardbody contingent to suddenly perk up.

Confident in his ability to speak fluent lax, Zeke will ask the nearby fellow (who, incidentally, sports some pretty sick lettuce) whether he brought his “ladle” on his trip. This fellow, having actually never played lax before in his life, will pretend to ignore the crazy person who just asked him a question about his kitchen – undeterred, Zeke will continue muttering incomprehensible sentences until realizing the fellow is no longer listening, at which point Zeke will disengage and beginning humming a nondescript tune to himself.

Somewhat sleep-deprived, Evan will occasionally report on what he sees happening outside on the wing of the plane. “The business of ferrets has just signed a peace contract with their immediate neighbors, but as history has proven, such agreements are often untenable,” he will gravely state.

Rich, worn out from carrying his five pieces of luggage to the airport, will fall asleep in his seat, his big ol’ heavy head drooping to unforeseen depths and a few tummy rolls emerging from underneath his blue v-neck shirt.

Commencing what he mysteriously refers to as “Operation Blobfish,” Zeke will take the opportunity to snap a picture of Rich.

With a loud chorus of creaks, groans, and belly-pats, Tirrill and every middle-aged father will rise from their seats to stand idly in the aisle as soon as the captain has turned off the “fasten seatbelt” sign.

Evan, busy sleeping with his hands on his face, will not realize that his leg has somehow found its way into a traumatized grandma’s lap across the aisle.

Zeke will “inevitably” ask the stewardess for some light reading, a request she will fulfill by handing him a small pamphlet on “Jewish Sports Heroes” – pleased that reality has played out exactly like the scene in Airplane, he will turn with a big dumb grin to Rich, whose predictably blank face will remind Zeke that the big ginger has seen four movies in his life (Jumanji, The Shawshank Redemption, Space Jam, and Dr. Zhivago).

Having gotten over the perceived ribbing by the stewardess, Tirrill will ask her whether they “are serving ice cream on this flight.”

Overcome with grief upon hearing her answer, Tirrill will throw a temper tantrum. A hardbody will attempt to calm him down – a kerfuffle ensues.

At least once, Zeke and Evan will imitate Craster from Game of Thrones – on an unrelated note, three nearby travelers will request seat changes. 

Becoming irritated with his current sleeping arrangement, Evan will fold his mantis-like limbs in such a way as to shift locale into one of the overhead compartments. 

Sensing that one of her travelers is grumpy, a stewardess will kindly offer Tirrill the opportunity to explore the cockpit, an offer to which he’ll energetically respond in the affirmative, quickly bounding his way up to the front of the plane.

Feeling the sudden onslaught of FOMO, Rich will ask another stewardess whether he may join Tirrill in the cockpit – when she tells him “no,” he becomes pouty and restless.

The plane will touch down, and despite warnings that “belongings may have shifted during flight,” the traumatized grandma will open the overhead compartment and witness a pale creature contortioned up where her bag should be – stricken by the sight, she will suffer what appears to be a heart attack.

Seizing the opportunity to offer unsolicited advice, Rich will consult his travel-sized law book (Ballantine’s 7^th edition of Law Problems and Solutions) before suggesting that everyone “calm down and remember the precedent set by Kansas v. Goldsteinfarb.”

Tirrill, cutting through Rich’s legalese, will use his lifeguard training to revive the grandma. Meanwhile, Evan stirs to consciousness as well.

Already feeling sentimental, Rich will request the entirety of the plane take a group photo. Later he will begin writing his next blog post: “Gosh guys, sometimes life can be pretty crazy…” 

A Tale of Friendship/Rich

For the four of us to end up together on this trip is pretty remarkable after the "near-swirlie" incident of 2013 (for those that don't know, Urban Dictionary says a swirlie is "a form of torture/punishment in which the victim is held upside down over a toilet, with his head in the toilet bowl, while it is flushed." Evan broke a cabinet and our bathroom sink trying to avoid this fate). Through four years of friendship we've had one year of living in squalor together, a lot of Super Smash Bros, probably too many trips to Rams, and quite a few nights getting rejected from frat parties. But the story- told from my perspective, at least- begins even before that.

Entering into my freshman year of high school, I went to a fateful pool party that sent this entire chain of events in motion. It was there that I met Cameron, and we formed a pair of two slightly awkward JV basketball hopefuls with one awful bowl cut (mine). After various ski and beach trips and a horrendous JV basketball experience, Cameron and I became best friends. Fortunately for me, this meant that I eventually also met his buddies from middle school, including this hooligan:



Though I didn't realize that Zeke was subtly making fun of me for the first four months of our friendship, and despite the time Zeke beat me in tennis in front of both of our families and various friends, leading me to break my racquet and throw it over the fence, we became friends as well. Next up: Spring of 2010, when the three of us all found out that we were Carolina-bound. Zeke and Cameron decided to room together while I went on a search for a roommate. After a lot of awkward Facebook messaging and a bunch of dead ends, a friend referred me to Tirrill. We went on a roommate dinner date, and the rest is history for us:



While Tirrill and I were busy enjoying our nicely-air-conditioned room in Ehaus (thanks to Tirrill's asthma diagnosis at age six), Zeke and Cameron were busy meeting their strange suitemates, and among them was a certain Evan Fitch:



Mostly through Evan gifting half of his wardrobe to Zeke, they became buddies. Through the high school connection of Zeke/Cameron/myself, the five of us formed a little squad that would live together in Morrison as sophomores (Our sixth roommate, Snyde, left us far too early to study abroad.):



That year was full of fantastic times; an occasionally clean common area, "the poop incident", the aforementioned love affair with Smash, many elephant seal battles, Tirrill's lady-killing streak, the time that Evan didn't leave his room or eat for the entirety of Fall break, some stolen poptarts, Cameron's big dumb boxer shorts, and one very insensitive rap. I couldn't have asked for better guys to hang out with, and was pretty bummed that we were splitting off for junior year- Cameron, Tirrill, and Evan to different apartments/houses and Zeke and myself to study in London.

It was during one fateful weekend trip to Scotland that the idea for this trip got sprouted in earnest. Zeke and I were driving through the Scottish Highlands and talking about how much Evan would love them (and the nearby whiskey distilleries..) and it was here that we agreed that we would make a senior trip, something we had always talked about vaguely, actually happen:



In our message chain with our roommates back home, we brought up the idea. Two years later, we're one weekend away from departing on that trip. We will miss Cameron while he explores California with Jenna, but it's pretty incredible that timing and circumstances still allowed the other four of us to make this trip a reality. Without so many lucky breaks- Zeke and I deciding independently to study at the same school and traveling together, Evan being planted in Cameron and Zeke's suite freshman year, meeting Tirrill instead of using the pseudo-online-dating that is roommate searching in the 21st century, living together sophomore year and having it go so well- we wouldn't be here. It's a story of travel, but also just of four guys who really really like each other:



So instead of more pictures at He's Not, we'll be taking our talents to Iceland, the UK, France, and Portugal. We're so excited and you can keep up with all of our ramblings here. We leave on Monday in the Frostmobile, headed to Washington D.C. to fly to Iceland. Here's to a month of shenanigans and trying not to fall down mountains!

-Rich

Preliminary Thoughts/Rich

As a late Mother's Day present to what will surely be our four most avid readers, I've gone ahead and started this blog up. The idea is for all four of us to combine our perspectives to give a cool panorama of the trip, but when Zeke inevitably refuses to write anything, I can still promise at least one Evan ramble and a few selfies from Tirrill.

My main project for the trip is going to be compiling pictures of Hobbes, my ferocious stuffed tiger, and Evan's sock monkey. At the end, with all of the photos of them at various famous landmarks and beautiful landscapes, I'm going to compile them into a little makeshift picture book. Anyone with younger cousins or family friends or godchildren is welcome to take a peek in case they want to show it to them- hopefully it will be educational, entertaining, and inspire some other folks to explore and travel the way we are.

Other things I'm excited about: inevitably getting conned in the streets of Paris and having someone to actually save me this time (thanks in advance, Tirrill), the hilarity of Tirrill learning to drive on the left side of the road/right side of the car in Scotland, Evan bathing in Icelandic rivers and somehow catching Cholera, and Zeke emerging from the trip with no face and only beard. Hopefully having four writers all determined to poke fun at each other will keep this blog lighthearted and humorous, and we're planning on having some pretty sweet pictures on the side. I'll pop in whenever we have Internet and leave assurances that I'm surviving, despite being on a diet without Tyson's grilled chicken.

-Rich