From Cartagena, it was a 4.5 hours drive to Madrid filled with songs from Frozen, Moana, The Greatest Showman, Sing, the Lion King, etc. 

Stayed at the NH Hotel Collection (Palacio de Tepa) which is in the Centro. Lovely old building with modern understated design. Great neighbourhood.  Beautiful plazas filled with outdoor cafes, and the city was pumping until the wee hours.  We walked everywhere. Visited the Museo Reina Sofia which was incredible. Amazing collection of 20th century Spanish and international artists like Picasso, Salvador Dali, Juan Miro, Juan Gris, Jean Arp, etc.  Alex was totally mesmerised by Luis Bunuel's avant garde film. The girls each picked out five of their favourite artwork and will make a project about it.

Had lovely Japanese lunch at the Mercado Anton Martin. We all miss good asian food so much! Went to visit our old friend Evan who we knew from Shanghai (employee no.1 of naked). She now works at Foreo, our dear friend Filip's company. There was a mountain of Amazon packages sent to her office as we didn't have a mailing address on the boat! Lots of books, legos, jewellery kits, storage boxes and organisers, various fitness gadgets, multi purpose cooker and a giant parasail! The trunk of our car was completely full! Wonderful dinner at Casa Mortero.

Rainy Sunday morning. We went to the street where all the Chinese stores are located. Found a bookstore and got some chinese books for Azania. Then the highlight was the visit to the chinese supermarket. Alex and Arabella roamed the store and found treasures like Japanese seaweed, roasted chestnuts, various chinese snacks, natto, frozen dumplings, spring rolls, shrimp dumplings, etc. Major shopping spree! Oops, didn't I say the trunk of the car was already full?! Grant was very nervous that we would sink the boat with all the stuff. Then we met up with Evan for chinese dim sum. It's been almost six months since we had dim sum. It was truly satisfying.