As a notorious candy junkie, I can address this with some authority. In general, Turkish candy is excellent both in quality and variety and there is little available in the U.S. that does not have a Turkish equivalent.

M&Ms, say, are not found in Turkey but Bonibon Candy Beans are essentially the same thing. The only significant American candies without a precise Turkish counterpart are peanut butter cups and other peanut-based candies. In Turkey, hazelnuts (fındık)are used rather than peanuts in candies, making for a better product in my opinion.

I haven't seen fındık cups, so I guess you could bring peanut butter cups as a novelty. I wouldn't bother; they're not that good a candy.

When I come from the States and want to bring candy as gifts, I get Lindt Lindor truffles. These are among my favorite candies from any source and always seem to be appreciated. The Lindt website is at:

Lindt product list

Just to clear something up...

When you enter Turkey via Ataturk, they do NOT stamp your passport at the visa line.

Follow the signs, in English, as well as the crowd from your flight, to Passport. The first line you will come to is Visa. It is well marked. Pay for your visa with U.S. dollars or Euros, either is accepted. They will stick a visa onto one of the pages in your passport.

Then you go to the Passport line to get your passport stamped.

I'm sorry, but you do need to stand in two lines. The Visa line is relatively short, no longer than 10 minutes. The Passport line can be much longer, with waits ranging from 10 minutes to an hour and a half, depending on how many flights are arriving.

I recommend that you bring an ATM card and get your money (as YTL) from ATMs, which are widely available. Check with your bank before you leave on your trip to make sure that your password is valid internationally and to notify them that you will be getting money in Turkey.

If you use an ATM card, you never need to change money.

My Bayram experience was a bit short but I enjoyed it a lot. I'd heard about the custom of children going door to door to wish everyone İyi Bayramlar and being given candy.

This sounded like children going door-to-door in the U.S., trick-or-treating and getting candy on Halloween. When I was a boy, I really appreciated the candy on Halloween and since then I've always stocked plenty for any children who came, although the custom has declined greatly in recent years.

So here, I resolved to be generous to the children. My original thought was to give each one a 1-lira coin so they could buy their own candy. When I asked a friend if he thought that was appropriate, he suggested that, as many people are not so well off around here, I could be a bit more generous and give each child a 5-lira note.

So I stocked up on 5-lira notes and inquired of a couple of friends how many visitors I could expect. Nobody could say, nobody would even venture a guess.

In the event, my stock of notes lasted less than an hour. Word spread very quickly and the kids thronged to my door. It was so nice to see the smiles on so many faces and they were so polite.

The only sad thing was running out of notes, as of course the bank was closed so I couldn't get more.

Next year you can be sure I'll be better prepared.

That was indeed a fine explanation. Thank you so much.

That's a great article. Thanks for posting the link and thanks also for your many other fine posts.

The 'ğ' is a glottal stop, an unvoiced closing of the back of the mouth. It is not a formal sound in English but you hear it fairly often in British speech and certain American groups. It seems to me to be becoming more common in American speech, where more and more people use it to replace the 't' (a dental stop) in some words.

The best example I know of in English is a Cockney pronunciation of 'bottle', which comes out something like 'boh-ul' with a little catch where the 't' sound should be.

I have seen canned bacon in U.S. stores, although I have no idea whether it's any good. You could surely bring canned bacon in your checked luggage

Serdar, thanks for the link. I've been hoping there was a page that lists suffixes.

Monday evening the young crescent moon will again be near Venus. In May, this alignment was a spectacular sight resembling the Turkish flag and this month's should be a good one too. Tuesday, they will be near each other also.



An article and star chartgives more details.