Istanbul Day 2

I ended up walking around yesterday and as I had my shorts on I didn't go into the Blue Mosque. I was hoping to go to shul for the Shabat Friday evening service but since the bombing at Neve Shalom security is pretty tight and you have to book in with the Chief Rabbi's office first, which of course was closed by the time I worked this out.

So instead I went to the Cagaloglu hamam for what I was hoping to be an authentic Turkish bath, strongarm massage and all. Here I learnt a lesson though. The place is beautiful but it is nowhere near the experience it should be and I think the problem is that it now appears in all those underresearched 100 Best Turkish Baths in the World lists that I am as guilty of as anyone else. It was nowhere near hot enough, the massage was vague and cursory, it was expensive and the attendant asked me for a tip and then asked how much it was going to be. I had a nice scrub down, though, and came out all smooth and shiny but that was that. Really disappointing. In Aleppo I am going to look for something a little more local. (For what a Turkish bath is meant to be like see here, which is a description of the same place ten years ago. )

At dinner time, Turkey were playing Croatia in the Euro 2008 quarter finals, which meant that every bar and restaurant in the city had the match on a big screen. I kind of avoided it until the last 10 minutes and then I ended up watching the penalties in one of those all-male Turkish private social clubs you see down Green Lanes, that was at the end of the road to my hotel. It looked OK and I just wandered in and sat down. No one paid me much attention and I didn't understand anything anyone said but that was fine. In fact it wasn't a very expressive place. When Turkey finally won the man next to me turned and cracked about 1/16th of a smile, which I guess was euphoria for a place like that. Later the streets filled with people sounding their car horns and celebrating but after about half an hour everyone had gone home to bed.

Today I went and had a look at Aya Sofia, the Blue Mosque and the Cistern - more so I could tick them off on my list. I wasn't really in the mood for cultural highlights. Then I idled round the Grand Bazaar and found a whole block dedicated to things you would need to make fake designer jeans. You could buy authentic looking labels and buttons and there was a whole stall (left) dedicated to belts.

After than I walked down to the river. There are lots of ferries crossing the Bosphorus for about 50p and I decided to get one one randomly and see where it went. I had a nice 15 minutes' sail (you can sit outside and the views were great) and ended up at the bus station. The surrounding bit of the city looked pretty dull and anyway it was up a steep hill, two reasons not to bother. So I had an ice cream, sat by the water for a bit and caught the next ferry back.

On the way home I came across this young man all dressed up with his mum and dad. He actually looked happier than that but maybe he does know what's going on. According to the guys behind the desk at my hotel, today he gets a party and lots of presents. And tomorrow he is circumcised. Ah, religion...