They were “just livid,” Chris remembers.

“I told them how I felt, and they might make fun of me for the rest of my life, but it’s based on a firm foundation of friendship and love,” Aaron says. “On top of that, people are always getting angry at each other, and forgiving a week later.”

Soon after, around a friend’s birthday, another group piled into the tub. The water level rose and waves began to cascade off the balcony. A tutor noticed the water and appeared at the door—the hot tub had been discovered.

The roommates dismantled the tub, hoping to find time to resurrect it later in the year. But the weather got colder, and the hot tub is still in pieces—one half of it remains on the balcony, the other lies in the common room corner.

From Quincy to Siberia

As their tales move beyond hot tubs and House life, the backdrop to their stories jumps from one exotic locale to the next.

It was their first group trip—sophomore spring break in Cozumel and Isla Mujeres, Mexico—that brought the eight together.

Justin, Daniel and Sam had blocked together, as had Kieran, Nick, Anthony and Aaron. They all ended up in Quincy House, but while Aaron and Justin knew each other, the others had not moved beyond being casual acquaintances.

Then, Justin decided to organize a spring break trip for the group. They rented a house in Mexico and got to know each other outside of the campus confines.

“That spring break was just the pinnacle,” Sam says. His first-year circle of friends had been limited, particularly in comparison to high school, when he hung out on the weekends with a group of 10 to 15 other friends. On spring break sophomore year, Sam saw the potential for a similar group at Harvard.

“Everyone got excited at the idea that we had this crew forming,” Justin remembers.

The roommates aren’t sure when it happened, exactly, but they link their decision to live together to the friendships that solidified during the Mexico trip.

“When you get out of Harvard and interact socially with people, I find the dynamic much more pure,” Justin continues. “It takes you out of being college friends, and you’re just friends.”

Fueled by his love of travel, Kieran invited Sam along on a trip to Russia the summer after sophomore year. Kieran, an English concentrator, sought to study literature that comes out of oppressed countries, while Sam had a more political interest in understanding the previously communist nation. Kieran introduced Sam to Dostoevksy, while Sam encouraged Kieran to read Marx.

Nick, meanwhile, was spending the summer in Japan, and Sam and Kieran had planned to take the Trans-Siberian railroad to meet him there. Aaron would also fly into Japan, and the four had a joke that they would meet in front of the Tokyo Museum on August 12 at precisely 1 p.m.