Daytime New Orleans

Since Margs has filled you in on all that goes BUMP in New Orleans' night times, I thought I'd give you a brief run-down on our day-to-day activities. We are currently on the plane to Miami - both of us are exhausted - so I'll do my best to be coherent, and Margs has a cold, so is feeling miserable. She is still persisting with her Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell, 650 pages in.

Between the two of us, we have eaten 15 beignets at Cafe Du Monde, which are delicious french donuts heaped with icing sugar, so light it feels like the taste is just in your mouth and hasn't made a bit of difference to your daily food intake. You can tell who's been a recent visitor of the cafe by the icing-stained clothing. To give you an idea of the place imagine a two-roomed spacious building filled with tables, overflowing with customers and busy with petite women busing tables. To the entrance side, big blinds have been rolled down to keep out the cool and I can picture them rolled up on a hot day, people and beignets spilling out on to the sidewalk. Outside a big black man trumpets his music, occasionally stopping to sing a few verses or to engage in conversation with passers-by. Pigeons stroll beneath our feet, tracking bird prints on the sugar-coated floor. Though billed as a tourist must see, I imagine the locals would be by daily too. I have sent Dad the recipe, so I would like you all to pester him and make sure he practises on you so he will be an expert by the time I come home.

We must have walked the same streets in the French Quarter a dozen times as we go round and round in squares: I wouldn't be surprised if Margot decided to make this place her permanent home. McGoverns, expect an email asking for all her possessions to be shipped as soon as humanely possible. It is a beautiful, if tired, place; the buildings sit snugly next to one another and all are two storeys high. Though I find this city delightful and a refreshing change to Vegas, I'm not in agreement with Margot. For one, I would quickly find myself fat, as Cafe Du Monde would be an everyday event. The other reason is that this is a tourist town: half the population work in tourism, so I imagine I would feel like a permanent visitor.

We found two wonderful bookshops: the first, a secondhand shop, has, strangely enough, the warmest restroom in town so we endeavoured to visit once a day. The selection of books wasn't too shabby either as each of us picked up a paperback. Mine is Delafield's Diary of a Provincial Lady, which I've just begun having finished Claire Tomalin's The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens ( which I strongly recommend. Rach, I think you would enjoy this as the Ternan family are an acting one and it has a lot to say about women in the theatre in the Victorian era). Margot picked up Dunker's Hallucianting Focault.

The second bookshop is reputed to be the home of William Faulkner. This was a place reserved only for hardbacks, with some of the most beautiful covers I've ever come across. We could have browsed the shelves for hours. Much to Margot's dismay, they didn't ship back home.

Though it sounds like we only ate donuts we did sample some of the local fare. On our third night we ate in a cosy dim-lit cafe named Napoleon's. Margot tried the gumbo and I, not feeling as adventurous, had the Mufuletta, which despite, I assume, its Italian origins has become something of a local speciality. It was delicious.

Going in back in time to that morning we visited the New Orleans Art Gallery mainly to see the Disney exhibition: Dreams Come True. On display was the artwork from a dozen films, including the latest Princess and the Frog, which is rather important, especially here, as Tiana is the first black Disney Princess. Both of us are loud proud Disney fans so it was a fun morning.

Our hostel was decent if not equipped to deal with the record cold spell the city is having and it is also right near the street car stop, making it easy to travel around. There is a water stain on the fireplace in the common room where it flooded after Katrina, but that is the only remnant we saw of that disaster. Had we been inclined, we could have taken a tour to the worst-hit areas.

We're looking forward to Miami and hoping for some warmer weather. We have been promised it will get to 21 by Wednesday. yay! We changed our hostel accommodation at the last minute after reading some horrible reviews of our original booking, so fingers crossed we made the right decision. No doubt you'll hear about it soon.

Hope all is well back home. Over and out. xox