Indy Jones wanna-be

There are a number of people checking my blog that I haven't met personally and so I thought I might share something for them (and for me this is one of my favorite stories). This is a reprint from an email I circulated when on a sabbatical 7 years ago, for 4 weeks I did nautical archaelogy in Israel then spent 2 weeks checking out the region. It's a fun story, says a bit about me and I hope you like it...

In the last week or so of the diving excavation, I was having lunch with team members sharing my plans for after the dive. They coincided with the plans of Pearl one of the dive crew and her father. So the three of us started our tour from Israel down to Petra, Jordan and over to Cairo.

My story starts a day before we left to go south. I was in church in Jerusalem; the congregation was small as Sunday is a standard work day. After the opening music the pastor steps up to deliver the sermon and out of the blue points at me and says, "You, you look like that Indiana Jones guy. What's his name? (pause) Harrison Ford." Naturally, I was surprised, still, I played along mentioning that I am told that fairly often (I personally don't see the resemblance). Also, I went on to say that I was actually in Israel for archeology. My sisters had bought me a hat in Australia some time ago that I wear often and friends tease by humming the theme music for Indiana Jones. Well, I told the congregation that I brought the hat from the Chicago to Paris to Israel and the next day was leaving to Petra, Jordan (where the final scene of the 3rd movie was shot) to see the sites and get a picture with me and my hat. On the way back to the hotel, I was entering the old city through Damascus gate when I saw a man selling whips. "How much I asked?" He quoted me 5 shekels or $1.25. "Sold."

The next day, with my whip and hat, Pearl, her father and I started south from Jerusalem. Stopping along the way at Ein Gedi, the Dead Sea and Massada. It was great fun. The following day we found ourselves touring Petra, Jordan! And I got my picture - sporting the hat and flailing the whip.