Harlem Renaissance

No, the car wasn't stolen or on cinder blocks.  No, we didn't get stabbed or mugged.  In fact, we didn't see anyone or anything of note in Harlem at all.

Where we did see something of note was that day in Times Square.
Surprised?

While waiting in line for last minute, discount, student TKTS to 42nd Street, Lindsay and I darted a few blocks away to go to the bank. 

We were intersected by at least 600 men, dressed to varying degree and aunthenticity as...

 Santa Claus.

If you're from New York, or watch the Today Show or anything like that you probably know about the Santa Marathon.

I didn't.

Naturally, we joined them for a short while, until a particularly overweight and avant-garde (read: unclothed) Santa showered us with candy of many varieties while kissing us and exhuberantly wishing us a Merry Christmas.
Enraptured, we skipped back toward our group.

INTERCEPTION!
This time... jews?  A cult?  A jew cult?.  Naturally.
"REPENT! THE TIME IS NEAR!  THE PROPHECY KING MOSCHIACH IS UPON US!"

Now, I admire anyone who is of such great faith that they preach to the unwilling and caustic masses.  But after being assaulted by the Big Gay Al of Santa Clauses, it was admittedly hilarious.

We walked off with a pamphlet, and a haze of confusion storming around our heads.

A haze which was broken by Christmas Carolers.  Giving out religious tracts?  The crazy kind of religious tracts that expel women as lecherous demons and remind you that celebrating Christmas makes you a pagan nonbeliever who deserves your place rotting with Judas?  I didn't stick around to see what exactly they were signging about, but I took some literature.  *See earlier note.

I mean, all that happened in like.. 15 minutes.

After 3 days we decided we were grossly underprepared for New York, and also we had only booked the hotel for 2 nights.  At sun-down we headed back to Tallahassee via Asheville.

Five years later I returned to New York City with my sister, her two BFFs, and my BFF for the second best New Year's Eve ever. (A holiday which is never fun, because it is always ruined by amatuers) While we missed Ludacris, Cristina, and Meatloaf in concert, we were kissed by every single person in Red's bar in Queens.  We even finally got to eat some real fuuuucken brooklyn pizza.  And salsa dance?  Probably.  We definetly shared a bed in a flat in Queens with the best cat I've ever met.