“Filet mignon or chicken chasseur – what do you expect?! It's airplane food!”

This was the warm greeting a fellow passenger received on US Airways from the airline steward. His crime? Asking what the choices would be on the dinner menu. Thus followed lots of petulant behaviour from the steward – this man had a clear case of PMS – Plane Misery Syndrome. He hated his job and wanted us to know it.

So, not the best start to our adventures around the southern states which had started at 5am that morning. Like a kid before a trip to Disneyland, I was too excited to sleep the night before and was pretty exhausted by the morning. That's my excuse, anyway, for asking the taxi to return home five minutes after we left for the airport because I'd left my handbag in the house! Duh!

Unable to sleep on the plane, I amused myself by watching 500 Days of Summer (predictable, pretentious, Zoe Deschenel highly annoying) and watching the aforementioned steward bitch his way around the aircraft for the next nine hours.

After a brief stopover in North Carolina, we caught a small plane to New Orleans and caught a shuttle to our hotel, Chateau Dupre. Unfortunately, the shuttle was packed and the only available 2 places were both next to amorphous blobs at opposite ends of the bus. I squeezed myself next to the least-obese specimen, forcing Simon to take the other seat, and was nearly thrown off my limited seat space at every turn – don't think New Orleans has heard of seatbelts.

The Chateau Dupre was built in 1845 and is described as a fine hotel in the old French Quarter of the city. The reality was a little different. The woman in reception was odd, to say the least. After making us initial a list of extra charges that had to be paid under Louisiana law (including paying $5 a day for a safe that doesn't have a key: “We did give the guests keys but we found they lost 'em” explained the indifferent receptionist), we were then told, after paying the bill upfront, that we had to pay $120 deposit that would be refunded to our bank 10 days after we left to cover the hotel “in case you brought wild animals into the room. We've had trouble before so don't you go bringing any wild critturs in if you want that money back” scolded a deadpan receptionist. Simon said it was probably her idea of a joke. I'm not so sure – she has mad eyes...

It was 5.30pm their time and 11.30pm back home, so we had been up nearly 19 hours. Still, we decided to visit the famous (infamous) Bourbon Street. Now, I've never fancied Magaluf so I've never been – but I can imagine it's the same kind of hell as Bourbon Street. We'd been told to expect seedy – well, that's putting it politely. We wandered down the noisy street gagging on the foul stench of vomit that was omnipresent in the stifling air (the temperature was still about 30 degrees), carefully dodging hookers in bikinis and hollering tourists, chanting “Get your 't*ts out for the boys”. Every bar was belching skank music at ear-splitting volumes, while shops were still open selling fashions that promised that you, too, could look like a lurex-clad prostitute. Nice.

Eventually, we found an oasis in the form of Maison Bourbon, which promised (and delivered) traditional New Orleans jazz. I heartily recommend this place – it's not cheap but there's no entrance fee and the band was fantastic – exactly what you imagine when you think of New Orleans jazz. The music was the best I'd heard, better even than the time I heard Dizzy Gillespie's band at the Blue Note in New York. I'd check it out.

Slightly tipsy, I fell into bed after an exhausting 24 hours. Sadly, sleep eluded me as everyone else in New Orleans seemed to be intent on partying the night away outside our (non-double-glazed) window. And the ones not partying sounded like they were revving Hells Angel-style hogs. So, another sleepless night for me then...