Like the poor fools we are, we booked our Greyhound bus to leave from Orlando rather than Kissimmee - so two painful hours of Orlando's finest public transport system later we were finally ready to leave the barren quicksand that is Orlando. The bus from Orlando to Mobile took 13 hours.

In Mobile we saw the funniest men's toilet of all time (photos included), the invisible bus stop (bus driver: "you ain't at the right stop - you need to stand over on the other side of the road", we look over and he is literally pointing at nothing) and the Mobile Mobile Police Station. We also tried to go for the ever elusive single beer which, as usual, ended about 7 hours later thanks to Tim, the bar's manager.

Tom's holiday idiocy returned for a brief spell in Mobile when he left our travel money card behind the bar in which we were drinking. It was only when we tried to pay for our taxi home that we realised. Two taxis later and all was sorted (at least Tom hadn't given our PIN to the bar man this time!).

On our fist evening in New Orlans we went to a jazz bar (where else would you go in N.O.?) with some of our fellow hostel guests, French Canadian Alex, Kiwi Joe and Ozzie Mick (Mick had just finished walking 3,000km along the banks of the Mississippi - incredible). Thankfully we were given a break from naked men in this hostel, at last.

We learnt that New Orleans is apparently pronounced New Or-lans by the locals, or at least by an extremely drunk girl who was trying to convince us to go to Jake the Snake's bar [or maybe to see Jake's snake!] at 6 in the morning). We refused, opting instead for late night Bloody Marys (Trudy was shocked to the core to see that they were served with spicy green beans and olives instead of celery 'tipped with black pepper' - her words) and cajun beef burgers.

The search for Tintin commenced, however with no theatres playing it, we ended up walking around the French Quarter instead. This pattern was repeated for the rest of our time in New Orleans, but replace Tintin with live jazz, and lots of it: in the bars, in the streets and in the parks. There was even a jazz band playing Christmas classics on the Mississippi steamboat we took on Christmas Eve.

After the steamboat we headed straight back out into the French Quarter with Alex, Canadians Rudy (not bl00dy Kyle, Tom) and Jan and a gang of Australians (is that the right collective noun for Australians?) for another night of jazz and alcohol. Christmas day saw us return home at 6 in the morning feeling very much the worse for wear - the perfect time to call home and then make pancakes for breakfast! 4 hours sleep later and Tom was forcing Christmas films on the rest of the hostel (if only we had a copy of Jingle all the Way, Arnie's finest) while Trudy power-napped in the armchair, oblivious to Tom's Christmas fussing and necking of egg nog. The roast made by Wes's parents went down a storm amongst the hostel guests and Tom, who had thirds while others had none - in the words of Little Chris (who how has a girlfriend, believe it or not) "grabby hands grab first". And grab they did. The final pieces of turkey were eaten by Tom with tears in his eyes.

Being in New Orlans, we wanted to experience the po'boy sandwich, which we finally did in Mothers restaurant thanks to Alex (home to the "world's best baked ham"). We knew the food would be good when we saw the queue, which literally wrapped around the corner of the building (in the rain, no less). I quote Alan Partridge this time when I say "needless to say I had the last laugh" (that's how good the ham was).

Anyway, we hope that everyone had a suitably merry Christmas and we'd like to wish everyone a happy new year.