Thomas Mann’s Munich: A Lone Trip to Germany

by Sosig Mardirosian

All night it had snowed, and by morning the rooftops were white and the cobbles along the narrow streets of Regensburg were not yet swept. I walked with haste, my hands thrust inside the pockets of my coat, pulled close against the German winter.

Inside the train station it was white and clean like a hospital. I sat beside the window and looked past my reflection at the wind brushing snow across Maximilianstrasse.

Munich was shining.

Thomas Mann's famous first line in Gladius Dei was imprinted in my mind. For one year I had studied and dreamed of going to Munic...