Munich.
When the plane landed at Strauss Airport, a fine rain was drifting past the windows.
Spring in Bavaria brought rain when rain was due, without all that fickle switching between clouds and sunshine. It was much like Bayern Munich's approach to football: no pandering, no favors. Once they opened the scoring, they went for the kill.
Li Luo looked out through the window.
Beyond the end of the runway, Munich's distant skyline vanished into the gray rain and mist. Only a few church spires pierced the clouds like medieval spears.
"Munich," he repeated.
Munich.
The name came from the Old High German word "Munih," meaning "monk."
Supposedly, the city had begun as a monastery built by a group of Benedictine monks on the banks of the Isar River.
Monks, beer, football.
Strip away the details, and those three things summed up a thousand years of Munich's history.
The coach left the airport and headed toward the city along the A92 Highway.
Outside the windows, the gray buildings of the airport's industrial district gradually gave way to Bavaria's distinctive green fields and forests.
In the distance, the outline of the Alps flickered in and out of sight like a sleeping giant.
Morata sat beside Li Luo, holding up his phone as he looked through travel guides to Munich.
"Munich's most famous historical event was the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. Some art student launched a coup in a beer hall, failed, got thrown in prison, and wrote Mein Kampf while he was inside."
"I'm looking up something else, too."
"What?"
"Munich's most famous football joke."
"Let's hear it."
"A man from Munich, a man from Hamburg, and a man from Berlin were sitting in a bar. The Hamburg man said, 'Our port has ships coming and going, carrying every