After a super well rested night, we headed out with our new friend Fanny. Not a euphemism, but a Swedish girl. We walked up Bourbon street, avoiding the temptation of morning drinking and strippers, and headed on to St Louis Cemetery 1 instead. I do love a good cemetery at the best of times, but New Orleans take burying the dead to a whole new level! Perhaps the most interesting and visited are the tombs of old Voodoo spiritualists, which have been marked with XXX by visitors who come, especially, to Marie Laveau´s tomb to ask for her help as the Voodoo Queen of Louisiana. One tomb imparticular stood out to us - a giant pyramid tomb which looked relatively new and modern next to the older tombs. We later found out that this belongs to Nicholas Cage, who after buying a big house in the centre of the the French Quarter, found out it´s gruesome history. Built and owned by the LaLaurie couple in the 1800s, one of LaLaurie's neighbors saw one of the LaLaurie's slaves, a twelve-year-old girl named Lia, fall to her death from the roof of the Royal Street mansion while trying to avoid punishment from a whip-wielding Delphine LaLaurie. Lia had been brushing Delphine's hair when she hit a snag, causing Delphine to grab a whip and chase her. The body was subsequently buried on the mansion grounds. On April 10, 1834, a fire broke out in the LaLaurie residence on Royal Street, starting in the kitchen. When the police and fire marshals got there, they found a seventy-year-old woman, the cook, chained to the stove by her ankle. She later confessed to them that she had set the fire as a suicide attempt for fear of her punishment, being taken to the uppermost room, because she said that anyone who had been taken there never came back. Bystanders responding to the fire attempted to enter the slave quarters to ensure that everyone had been evacuated. Upon being refused the keys by the LaLauries, the bystanders broke down the doors to the slave quarters and found "seven slaves, more or less horribly mutilated ... suspended by the neck, with their limbs apparently stretched and torn from one extremity to the other", who claimed to have been imprisoned there for some months. The tortured slaves were taken to a local jail, where they were available for public viewing. It was said that these slaves placed a curse on the house, and it seems to be true for poor Nicholas Cage who refused to live in the house or sell it out of fear of the curse, lost it in forclosure. Apparently the pyramid tomb is his way of shaking off the curse, believing if he returns to New Orleans in death the curse will be lifted from his family. Strange bloke.

After the cemetery we headed to the Acme Oyster bar which was deeeeeelish! I had athe ´11 nampkin slow cooked beef´ po´boy and Donna tucked in to some etouffe. Southern food at it´s best! We walked off the food back to the hostel, just in time for a decision to head out to the Maple Leaf Bar to see the Rebirth Brass Band, who won a Grammy in 2012. They did not disappoint. It was exactly how you picture being in a New Orleans bar listening to some real life jazz and soul. Dark, cramped, smokey and absolutely incredible. We soon befriended the couple we were jammed up, swaying along to the music with, and as seems to be a running theme on this trip we accepted their invitation to drive us back to the hostel. Perhaps it was being in New Orleans, but I came over all Blanche Dubois and relied on the kindness of strangers (FYI - A streetcar named Desire really does exist. Pure literary happiness at that!).