Summer was when Stefan and I drove out from the West for the East. I was barely twenty and he was twenty-three, old enough to drink without a fake ID and still make decisions based on experience.
Stefan and I met in Berkeley where he was an exchange student from Germany. We lived in the same dorm, him two floors below, played intermural basketball together for our dorm team and studied together for too long hours in the International House library while being hyped on too much caffeine.
By the time finals ended, we celebrated by renting an overpriced paper white Chevy Malibu and alongside with our tent, sleeping bag, stove and propane tank, decided to head off on a road trip across the country for 45 days. By the time we were in Maryland, we had already gotten lost in the Mojave Desert, low on water, experienced sandstorms in Lake Powell that made me see Stefan as a deer leaping through sand to catch our tent carried away by the wind, had shot too many AKs in Dallas only to end up fearing them because it was so easy for a 16 year old to buy a Hello Kitty gun, had stopped by Atlanta just so we could see the eternal flame of Martin Luther King Jr.
The museum had just opened ten minutes ago. When we were in Berkeley, Stefan majored in computer science. He was interested in the idea of freedomβonline. Berkeley was where he wanted to proceed with his interest. After all, apart from being the best school in the nation for computer science, Berkeley was where the Free Speech Movement had begun during the s. So can you please install end-to-end email encryption so that I can answer you encrypted?
You can find my public key under my usual email address. If you are stuck or have questions ask. Stefan out!! Nonetheless, I did what he requested and he said yes to being my date. Later, we watched the Bay Bridge blink before usβwatching us watching it, Stefan told me why privacy mattered so much to him. Stasi informants were found everywhere in everyday life in East Germany: schools, hospitals, apartments, families, and marriages.
