So I'm not actually in L.A. right now, I've already left but I haven't yet gott around to updating my blog so I'm doing it now.

I arrived in Los Angeles and made my way over to my friend Sally's house. I was pretty exhausted from a 13 hour flight in from New Zealand so since I got to her house at about 9am we both went back to sleep for a few hours! It was weird because my flight left at 12.45pm and arrived at 7.30am so it was as if I went back in time! It was due to the time difference being 19 hours and crossing the international date line When we woke up we went for a coffee and I've actually found that my favourite coffee is a vanilla latte! I'm not usually much of a coffee drinker. While we were at the cafe I told her all my New Zealand adventures which actually took a couple of hours! It was really really nice to just catch up as we hadn't seen each other for over a month and we are really good friends so it was nice to just relax a bit. Sally's unidentical twin sister Eliza, Sally and I went to the cinema in the evening then I crashed when my head hit the pillow as soon as we got home! Sally and I decided that the following day we would go to Disneyland as she had free tickets!

We woke up at 9am and eventually made it to Disneyland at 11.30am; we left later to avoid the morning traffic. It was pretty immature of us to go but we had a really fun time! We went on all the most important rides (Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones, and of course the old classics Peter Pan and It's a Small World!) and had a great time. The queues weren't too bad, we only had to wait for ages a couple of times and we amused ourselves by taking lots of stupid photos of ourselves. So easily amused!! We were going to stay for the light show they had on in the evening but decided to go home and eat something instead, so we got a Thai takeaway on the way home which was absolutely delicious! That evening we watched Saving Private Ryan. The opening scene is just horrific of D-Day and I thought I wasn't going to be able to watch all of it because it was so gory in parts, but all in all I was glad that I made it through because the story was really moving and it was a very well made film. I'd recommend it!

The next day we just relaxed a little more. We were going to hit the beach but the weather wasn't too great, so we decided to go to an art gallery instead called the Getty where they had an exhibition on of post-war photography. It was really interesting there; we spent 3 or 4 hours there! There were lots of rooms which each had a different photographer's work in. Some were of the Vietnam war and the civilians there, some were of the struggle between blacks and whites in the Southern States, some were on eating disorders, some were on Chernobyl, and some were on the genocide in Rwanda, to mention but a few. It was pretty tough going but the photos were excellent and really caught the essence of what it could have been like to be there.

It was my last evening with Sally and Eliza (Sally voluteered with me at the school Pajaro de Fuego in Guatemala for those of you who don't remember), so we cooked a meal together and then watched one of my favourite films "Shawshank Redemption", which I think is an incredible story, then just chatted for a while before falling asleep!

I introduced Sally and Eliza to the Stereophonics, who I'm happy to say they loved! One of my favourite bands. I acted a bit as a music guru for them telling them the names of many excellent British bands to get their teeth into!

The next morning I rapidly packed my bags and Sally took me to the airport to get my flight up to Edmonton in Canada to see my brother. Sally and I had a sad farewell, but hopefully I will see her again soon! We look like twins more that her actual twin Eliza and her do!

Anyway, that's the end to my little L.A. escapade! I had a great time :)

Love Joelle

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