A taste of love and France

It started quiet mundane.
Saturday, a square near the main station of Heidelberg, a lovely Barbie-town in the South of Germany with creamy-pink, mustard- yellow, celestial-blue two-or-three floored houses, ubiquitous flower-beds, friendly strangers, beginning their day in numerous bakeries and ending it in so-called «Biergarten» - local pothouses
My friends and enrolled in a language course here. And on that Saturday we were supposed to have a one-day bus trip to Strasbourg, France, arranged by our language school. So we stand on the square waiting for our bus, which should departure at 8.15 precisely.
Keeping in mind the total punctuality of German people, - which is no cultural stereotype by the way, they literally are always on time, - we hurried up to a bus with a tablet “Strasbourg”. The driver looked at our trip-programs and let us in without a word and we hit the road at 8.11 – which was strange, remember the punctuality.
Of course, it was a wrong bus but we realized that somewhere in the middle of the road noticing more retired people than students on the next seats. The destination was the same though and in less than an hour we arrived at Strasbourg. French was in the air: pothouses were replaced by graceful restaurants, bakeries by “patisseries”, pretzels by croissants, passerby spoke louder and more emotional...
As we were left at the main, we had no choice but to enjoy our adventure for the full. We took up our arms -a tourist map, bought for 1 euro at the nearest newsstand and a poor French knowledge – and wandered through the streets of the city.
Out of thin air appeared a charming old-lady who carried a tray with sweets - a “pomme d’amour” vendor. She could have been a character of an old French fairytale – old-fashioned dress, curly silver hair under a tiny felt hat. Her natural beauty had faded with years, but her bright deep-blue eyes were full with kindness and dignity. She offered us apples in shiny caramel with such a lovely smile, repeating her words slower as she noticed our confusion, so, we couldn’t help buying one of her shimmering treasures. She wished us something, nodded gracefully, said farewell and disappeared in crowd.
I had never tasted a pomme d’amour before that day and actually, never since. I think I just don’t want to spoil the that miraculous moment. That old lady was truly the embodiment of good old times of France, with no skyscrapers, European Court, even cars. And the taste of that France was amazing