"Check in" at the hotel is quick and painless. The bathrooms are clean, the beds are adequate, the internet is working and the kids are happy. That's what we call a travel day HOME RUN. The troops are hungry so it is off we go to see if we can find "turkey in Turkey", hey I can't make this stuff up.
10 meters from the hotel is the alley that leads to "FISH street."
A quick left and we are bombarded by the smell of fish and the sounds of commerce. Restaurant after restaurant is set up "cafe style" with chairs and tables outside tightly packed in a "get to know your neighbor" configuration. Each restaurant has a "bird dog" salesman who works you fast and hard to get you to sit at "their" table. We run the gauntlet, literally. The kids decide it will be a fun game to "count the solicitations" and so we bob and weave our way back up the street with the word, fish, "kumkapi", lit up in rainbow-like neon colors.We left the hotel thinking "pizza" and now we are just hoping to survive the smell of fish and the onslaught of "Turkish commerce." We are the perfect "mark" for the salesman and you can see them lining up to talk to us like we are celebrities. While we'd like to think it is our stunning good looks that has the multi-lingual sales pool in a frenzy, I suspect that it is the Anglo-Saxon, travel dressed family of 5 that has them excited. So this is what it's like to be a trout that a fisherman can see as he looks to pick the perfect fly as bait to land the big one.
As we near the last few restaurants the kids are at 8 sales pitches and so far so good, we're almost out of the gauntlet. Just 2 more to go and we'll be back on the streets of Istanbul. Then it happens, "we have Pizza for the little one" and he knows instantly that he has a bite and when he shows us the picture I could almost feel the fish hook "set" in my wallet.
Our host busied himself getting us organized. 
They sit us front and center so that folks can see the "Americans" as they progress down the road. We've become the salesman's new tool "look we have many families that eat here." Seamus comes up with an idea when he sees what's going on with the Turkish sales pitch. He calls our new friend over and Seamus says "Hey if I can get 4 other tables sold for you, do we eat for free?" Man I like how he thinks!! The salesman laughs grabs Pearse's cheeks and says "you bring me great great luck tonight".
They sit us front and center so that folks can see the "Americans" as they progress down the road. We've become the salesman's new tool "look we have many families that eat here." Seamus comes up with an idea when he sees what's going on with the Turkish sales pitch. He calls our new friend over and Seamus says "Hey if I can get 4 other tables sold for you, do we eat for free?" Man I like how he thinks!! The salesman laughs grabs Pearse's cheeks and says "you bring me great great luck tonight". It is a night of revelry, stomach twisting laughter and experience building observations. There is a couple from the USA next to us and across the way a couple from Russia and another from Canada. 
It is fair to say that we provided them with hours of entertainment. Of course there was plenty of material for laughs, for instance when you picked your fish they brought it out, "head and tail" still intact, in a wagon with a bed of ice so you could see it before it went to the chef. Eamon looked at the fish and said "poor guy, now that's a rough day." At a table next to us they poured a liquid gel on a mound of salt and lit it on fire. There's nothing quite like "fire" to get the attention of 3 boys. It burned fluorescent orange and then hot red to almost blue. Once the flame died out the waiter cracked the salt pile and inside a steaming white fish. As the kids stared, eyes wide open, I hear the feint sounds of castanets in the distance. I know what that means and by the time the fish is served to the table behind us the boys turn back and see their first "belly dancer." "Is she on the table?" asks Pearse "I hope she doesn't get in trouble!" Eamon and Seamus not quite so sympathetic as they chuckle to each other as if their mother can't hear the teenage banter. As we leave kumkapi alley Seamus leans over and says "Dad, I could hang here all night."
It is fair to say that we provided them with hours of entertainment. Of course there was plenty of material for laughs, for instance when you picked your fish they brought it out, "head and tail" still intact, in a wagon with a bed of ice so you could see it before it went to the chef. Eamon looked at the fish and said "poor guy, now that's a rough day." At a table next to us they poured a liquid gel on a mound of salt and lit it on fire. There's nothing quite like "fire" to get the attention of 3 boys. It burned fluorescent orange and then hot red to almost blue. Once the flame died out the waiter cracked the salt pile and inside a steaming white fish. As the kids stared, eyes wide open, I hear the feint sounds of castanets in the distance. I know what that means and by the time the fish is served to the table behind us the boys turn back and see their first "belly dancer." "Is she on the table?" asks Pearse "I hope she doesn't get in trouble!" Eamon and Seamus not quite so sympathetic as they chuckle to each other as if their mother can't hear the teenage banter. As we leave kumkapi alley Seamus leans over and says "Dad, I could hang here all night." A great first few hours in Istanbul!
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