A New Black Hat

I woke up early (as usual) this morning and decided I needed an adventure. So I set off to the one of the few places awake at 5:30am on a Friday morning - The Jaffa Flea Market. Here I'm not talking about the sticky annoying tourist trap of a Jaffa Flea Market. No, this is the real deal. It is here that Israel sells its crap. And it starts early on a Friday. The picture above is before 6am and already the "collectors" are out and about. Now in the past I was known to frequent certain Northern California Flea Markets looking for old tools, but this is a long long way from North California. There is no describing the kind of junk they sell here. No tools worth mentioning. I swear I walked around for two hours and all I could find was a hat. Not bad actually considering it cost 10 NIS and now I have a (black) hat for the Megiddo dig.

When I first spotted the hat guy he was busy dovening (you know the swaying and shaking that Jews do when they are talking to their god) complete with tallis and tefillin. I waited around for him to finish but it was a long service this morning and so I wandered around the "stalls" (actually just people with their junk laid out on the ground). After about a half hour he seemed to be done so I went up and asked how much the hats were. He looked up, smiled, and motioned for me to bend my head. Taken off guard, I did as he bid (thinking this was some sort of hat buying ritual), and he laid his hands on my head and mumbled a few words. I looked up in surprise, he winked and told me the hats are 10 Sheks and the blessing is free. What a deal!