Good morning Sevilla! Still in bed with somewhat hurting legs – the extensive walk yesterday, with quite a heavy load on my back left traces. I arrived late at Sevilla and haven´t seen much yet, but still, I can say straight away that I´m in love with this city. Less tidy, bit more messy and noicy than Malaga, Sevilla embraces you with its urban charm and arabic flair grown during ancient times of its history. I strolled a bit around the streets around the hotel and had some glasses of red wine and a quick bite at a TAPAS bar – small but ecxcellent: spinach with raisins and cod fish in crispy bred and second one old warm goat cheese on tomato jam (yes, tomato jam! I have to try that – excellent sweetish taste and wonderful intense red colour) with bred. The tapas gained a new friend . Actually, also during the days to come I could not refrain from a late tapa of the same content – probably it ist he need of some repetitive actions that put my life in balance.
So, time to get up – the fleemarket is waiting!
And the fleemarket did not dissappoint me. You could find all kind of staff – from really torn and worn out shoes and personal belongings up to apparently valuable antiques. Each kind of goods seem to have their place and vendors and sellers seem to know each other. Surprisingly only few tourists walked around there. On the other hand the sellers were of quite colourful composition with multinational background – of course, amongst them also Russians and Romanians. The latter you find with hands up on one of the pics.
The afternoon (which is supposed to be a Thursday) I spent as a classical tourist – all in all walking some 20 km!! (had it measured with my jogging watch) so that my legs hurt like hell in the evening and when I was back at the hotel shortly after 22 h I instantly fell asleep like a baby. I visted or passed by the most imporant tourist destinations like the Alcazar (inside as well), the cathedral, the jewish or formerly arab quarter, the house of Pilat which as a matter of fact has nothing to do with Pilat; the name should rather be an allusion to the trip to Jerusalem by one of its owners, which was quite an adventure at the beg. of the 16th century. My adventure yesterday was to find the museum of contemporary art. In a spanish city with mainly spanish people who predominantly speak spanish and with a guide where information is wrongly published, it is rather difficult and close to impossible to find a new destination. Moreover, the MoCA by itself seems not to be very well known so the few Englishspeaking people didn´t help to cure my misery. It took me a while to realise that the museum was opposite to the place marked in the plan. So I took the bus and the driver unintendedly challenged me with another task, but telling me to get off at the wrong station. The whole effort was worthwhile and it was interesting to see the exhibition of invented states and utopic republics. it was funny to see Edwin Lipburger on TV defending his creation of the new republic “Kuglmugl” 
and Antje Schiffer´s Vladimir saying „wunderbar“ tot he complete bullshit strategy of Roland Berger (one couldn´t expect anything else).
Today, Friday, I completed my touristic task by visiting the inside of the impressive cathedral, the museum de bellas artes and Pilat´s house. All of these destinations were so impressive, that I was asking myself at times, what Vienna could offer tourists in comparison with such points of attraction? Not to repeat what countless guides or Wikipedia can tell you (well, it might be worthwhile to mention that the remains of Columbus are kept in the Cathedral in Sevilla), I simply would like to state that the wealth created during times when Sevilla was the trading point with the new colonies, is demonstrated in the buildings. Huge in size and precise and neat in detail. It seems not all was considered bad what arabs did during their 500 years occupation, so architecture and design was influenced by them even during times of catholic kings. All about the „time after“ is presented in a glorious way, but little is said about the pogroms over jewish AND arab people. The arab time seemed to have been a period of freedom and tolerance, much tot he contrary of what historians and people of the press (are supposed to) communicate to us. The museum de bellas artes also reflects the glory oft he times. With more money also artistic works increased and developed more sophisticated styles. Somehow this development reminded me on Amsterdam and Antwerp, when arts became more popular with increasing wealth of its citizens. So it is none-sense that artists just live art for art…it´s more art for money, a trading game with high yields and profitability.
After some tasty tapas I attended an event of Flamenco dancers. It was interesting to listen and watch the music – yes, you could do both and at times I had the feeling I needed a third eye to follow all the actions on the scene. Some questions though remained unresponded, beside the one of the origin of the dance and music (allegedly of gypsy origin): – does a Flamenco singer have to weigh a min. of 100 kg? do Flamenco dancers have to make a sad face which is close to ugliness? I shall ask some Sevillian people, maybe they know about these secrets.
While I was waiting for the Flamenco performance I strolled around Judaria and entered a little shop dedicated to products of ORANGE. I had a nice talk with Maria, the shop owner lady, who tried to convince me about marmelade with out sugar. I would have believed it if there wasn´t the remark about „no other additives“ which made it clear
that sugar free would not work. She also told me that the thousand of Orange trees all over the place are „hearvested“ by the Sevillians. So from the trees in front of her shop and house she collects the fruits and uses them for her own purpose or gives it to craftsmen who do marmelde, sopes or other products from organges for her shop. We exchanged email addresses and would be nice to get some input from her for „m
yshop“.
I ended my toursitc day with a lengthy walk to the Arena de Torrero de Sevilla and over the bridge to Triana led me back to the hotel. The photos i shall upload later as well. Now I have to pack in order to get ready for my next destination as I´m heading tomorrw at 8 am towards Cordoba for one full day.