Things are rarely the way they might look – as Sergey says – they might be either easier or more complicated.
I have a very special liking for Alsace and Strasbourg in particular.
I cannot help considering the peculiar architecture of the area as a real setting for a fairy tale play.
The little multicoloured houses look like if they had been made of gingerbread to decorate the shop window of a smart confectioner’s.
This district, my favourite, “la Petite France” (the Little France), so idyllic, so joyful, and so inviting for a peaceful stroll…
How can we imagine it was originally, with practically the same little houses we can still see nowadays, submerged by the mephitic and nauseating smells of tanneries?
How can we guess that its so romantic name, the Little France, comes after the name of a hospital for syphilitics?
Sometimes it’s risky to lift up a little the time curtain, to find out what is hidden in the shadow of past years.
T.S. Eliot summed all that so splendidly

“Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.”

So we are in the present now, with the consciousness of the past, which doesn’t prevent us to enjoy the beauty which is offered to our eyes in this very moment.

After such useless speculation, it’s time, Sergey, to go to get a beer!