This morning, after 4ish hours of sleep, we got up, grabbed our bags, checked out and jumped in a cab. We drove to the airport pretty quietly as we were so tired, then went to check in. We dropped off the bag and went through security and all the customs and passport checks that go with getting into the USA. While we were waiting in a customs line we got a laugh out of some guy who thought it would be a good idea to take a selfie of him at customs... Uhhhh... The officers were not happy with him, and we thought he was going to get his phone confiscated, but they only made him delete the photos. Then when he got to the front of the line the officer who had called him out made him go in his line! That was pretty funny. Until the lady behind us started talking to Darren saying how stupid he was and jokingly said maybe he was a terrorist! Never use the T word in a US customs line, lady! Luckily no one heard her and we got through customs no worries  (apart from the customs official telling Darren he needed a haircut!) then made our way to the gate. I waited with our luggage while Darren waited in a massive starbucks line to get us a coffee, then came back again with some spring rolls for me and chicken for him. I bought some headphones with (almost) the last of our Canadian money, as mine had broken a while back, then after a bit, we boarded the plane. We lucked out on exit row seats again, and Darren chatted with some Aussies in the next row while I blogged away. Towards the end of the trip, the seatbelt sign came on, and very quickly we came across some turbulence. It was very sudden and a few people didn't have time to get back to their seats. The plane rocked, then dropped for a second then jolted back. One girl in the aisle was thrown a bit and hurt her knee, and a man was knocked to the ground where he was standing outside the toilets. His little 7ish year old was in the bathroom when it happened and looked pretty scared when she got out! Poor thing! Not long later we had a pretty rough landing, but arrived safe in LA. We went down to the baggage carousel to get our bag, then tried to sort out our day. We got organised with some help from the lady at the info desk then went outside and caught the free shuttle to the bus depot. Once there, we swapped to the Big Blue Bus and made our way into Santa Monica. This driver was a pretty crazy driver too, almost knocking an old lady off her feet at one stage when he didn't wait for her to sit down! Must be the day for rough travel! We got into Santa Monica and walked down to True Tone Music where we said hi to Chris, and he let us leave our bags and guitars behind the counter. We walked down the street a little bit, to a vegetarian cafe called Real Food Daily where we sat down for a bite. I ordered a burrito which was absolutely enormous, I only managed about half of it, and Darren got a yummy sandwich. We chilled there for a while, and ordered a takeaway meal for Chris, then waited a bit longer to leave, as it was raining. When the rain eased up we made our way back up towards True Tone, but stopped at a shop to look at headphones for Darren, because they're supposed to be much cheaper here than in Australia. We didn't decide on any, thinking we could research it a bit more and come back, so we kept walking. But the rain had come back! We walked in the rain across the road to use the wifi at the coffee shop, and went back to the store again, but in the end, decided it wasn't really that much cheaper, and they didn't have the exact model we were looking for anyway. So we left and walked quickly back up to the music store in the pouring rain! We hung out there for a while and played some different guitars and basses and showed off our new instruments to Chris, Rob and Trent until Chris knocked off at 4pm. We wrapped the mandolin case up in a garbage bag, put the two ukes under Chris' umbrella, then the three of us walked down to the main part of Santa Monica and went to a bar called Cabo Cantina. We got a table and ordered some giant margaritas. They got a Jameson flavored one, and I got a pomegranate one. They were 36oz, which is about a litre, so we got some photos and had a good chat together. We ordered another round, but then cancelled them straight away, and decided to go to the house party Chris had invited us to, so we jumped in a cab and went to Weho (West Hollywood). The driver was very standoffish to start with, but, being from Armenia, hit it off with Chris pretty well as they talked about Russia, and the time that Chris spent there. We arrived to the street, and walked up to the house in the rain, and went upstairs. We met the housemates, Katy and Kendra who were having a joint birthday party, and we met Marie, who we'd met drunkenly at IHOP on our first night in LA as well. The boys and Marie went for a walk down to the bottle shop, but I decided just to hang out at the house, and talked a little bit with some of the guests, Adrian and Kymil (I think that was her name!) and a couple of others. Kendra got up and sang some songs karaoke style to a backing track, and Kymil and the other girl did some interpretive dancing around the lounge. The house was covered in paintings done by the girls and some of their friends, and there were cool lights and smoke and atmosphere. It was pretty cool! When the boys got home, Darren showed me a photo of the beer they had bought for me, and drank on the way back, then we hung out and chilled for a while. After a little while, the other boys from the band, and Rob arrived, and at I went through the kitchen to find Chris on the roof (like a balcony) scooping water off into a bucket so people could hang out out there as well! He was doing it with just a glass though and there was a lot of water! I think his margarita got to him a bit! We had a laugh about that, and I had a chat with Kevin (guitarist) and we had a laugh as Chris poured his bucket of water over the side of the house, almost onto a dog! We went back inside and it was about time for us to leave, so Chris went to call a cab for us. As he did he fell down the stairs. No one was surprised! While we waited for the taxi, Katy and Chris got up to play a song (she really wanted to play before we left!) which was really awesome, then we went around to say our goodbyes to everyone. Katy gave us a print of one of her artwork pieces for free, which was awesome, then we went downstairs to wait for the taxi. We said abother goodbye to Chris then jumped in the cab and headed to the airport. Our driver was another Russian, which we found out after a confusing conversation about where he's from, Mordovia, as he kept saying it was a country. We were guessing Moldova, Macedonia etc, until he finally said it was in Russia! We got to the airport and made our way to the terminal and did all the check ins and security stuff, then went to find our gate. Darren went to grab some food for us, then we chilled out and ate burgers. We were both getting pretty wrecked by this point, and after waiting over an hour for our boarding time, our flight was delayed. It turned out to only be by about 40 minutes but we were already so tired! Eventually we boarded, found our seats and we each took a restavit (sleeping tablet) and got ready for the 14 hour flight. The flight was delayed another 40 minutes or so, apparently, but I was so far asleep before we even left the tarmac.