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