Basic information on Turkey
Money
The monetary unit in Turkey is the New Turkish Lira (YTL), which comes in banknotes of 1, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100. Smaller denominations come in coins of 1, 5, 10, 25, and 50. In general $1 ≈ 1.3-1.5 YTL. Please note, in Istanbul, traveler's checks are rarely accepted. However, places like the Grand Bazaar will accept dollars in addition to YTL. I don’t recommend exchanging a lot of money at the airport when you arrive because you will get a much worse exchange rate there than in the rest of the city. The best exchange rates are generally found in the streets around the Grand Bazaar.
YTL
To see today's exchange rate click here
Weather
In July/August the average high temperature in Istanbul is 78˚F and the average low is 64˚F. Many tourist destinations and buses do not have air conditioning so be prepared for the heat. Bring some kind of jacket as well as it can get cool along the Bosphorus in the evening.
For the current weather in Istanbul click here
Time
Turkey is 7 hours ahead of the Eastern time zone. You will lose a day when you fly out but gain time when you fly back to the U.S.
To see the current time in Istanbul click here
Drinking Water
I don’t recommend drinking the tap water in Turkey. It may make you sick because you’re not used to the water. However, you will probably be ok if you brush your teeth using the tap water. You also won’t find a normal water fountain anywhere in the country. However, sometimes you may run across large outdoor fountains with numerous spigots where residents come to fill up water bottles for use at home. It is ok to drink from those. Otherwise, bottled water is the way to go. It is fairly inexpensive to buy and sold everywhere.
Food
Turkish Breakfast
To get the full experience out of Turkey there are a few types of food you must definitely try. For specific restaurant recommendations, look at the Dining In Istanbul section of the Getting Familiar With Istanbul page.
The first must-have meal is a traditional Turkish breakfast which consists of Turkish sausage (sucuk), feta and other kinds of Turkish cheese, bread (the fresh bread in Turkey is to-die-for) or simits (Turkish sesame bagels), olives, jam and fresh fruits and vegetables.
Döner
For those of you who eat meat, you must absolutely go to a kebab restaurant where they serve not only shish kebab but also döner (gyro meat) and other types or Turkish köfte or meatballs like Adana and Urfa. Note, some of the meatballs can be pretty spicy. Another must-have experience in Turkey is eating fish along the Bosphorus. At both the kebab and fish restaurants they will bring out hot and cold appetizers on a tray before the meal and you choose the ones you like. Be prepared to eat a lot at both types of restaurants.
Another one of my favorite dishes is mantı. Mantı is basically meat-filled Turkish ravioli, but to get the full mantı-eating experience you must have it with yogurt on top (be prepared to eat a lot of yogurt while you’re in Turkey as it’s a standard accompaniment to most meals) and various spices (mint, red pepper, oregano and sumac).
For the vegetarians, there are plenty of great vegetable dishes, many of which feature eggplant or beans. Most of the zeytinyağlı, or olive oil, dishes will be perfect for you. I love the eggplant salad and mücver or zucchini pancake. You can also try Imam bayildi, a stuffed eggplant dish.
Mantı
Dolma, which can be stuffed grape leaves or peppers, is another option for the vegetarians. Dolma is usually stuffed with rice, although there can be meat-filled dolma as well. One of my most favorite Turkish dishes is karnıyarık, which is similar to dolma, in that it’s stuffed eggplant, but it is stuffed with meat instead of rice.
Böreks are sheets of pastry filled with one of many fillings – cheese, meat, spinach, etc. A spinach börek resembles the Greek spankopita.
If you’re looking for something quick to eat you can always grab a durum (gyro wrap) or tost (it’s not just toast, it’s a Turkish grilled cheese sandwich with sausage in it if you want) from a stand.
Börek
There are 2 types of Turkish pizza. Lahmacun is a thin dough topped with minced meat, tomatoes, onions, green peppers and parsley. Lahmacuns are standard and you don’t have a choice of toppings. The other Turkish food that resembles pizza are pides. Pides are boat shaped pita bread topped with your choice of toppings such as cheese, sausage, minced meat, and lamb.
Another Turkish favorite, especially after a night of drinking, is midye dolması, mussel on top of rice, the closest thing to Turkish sushi. If you try it, don’t forget to squeeze some lemon juice on it.
Lahmacun
For those of you who are more daring, I recommend the kokoreç. It’s a real delicacy, but if you want to know what it is, you’ll have to ask. If I tell you now you might not try it.
While in Turkey I also recommend you eat lots of fruits and veggies as you’ll find that they taste infinitely better than the ones sold in the U.S. In particular I recommend you try the tomatoes, cucumbers, peaches and apricots.
As far as desserts I’d say there are 3 main types: pastry desserts, pudding-based desserts and fruity desserts. Just a quick warning, you’ll find that Turks often put some strange things in their desserts.
Baklava
In the pastry dessert category you’ll find baklava, künefe (shredded pastry bathed in syrup and baked to a crisp crust around a filling of soft cheese – you really can’t taste the cheese), and kadayif (shredded dough similar to künefe minus the cheese).
In the pudding-based category you’ll find muhallebi (milk pudding), sütlaç (rice pudding), supangle (chocolate pudding with cake in it), tavuk göğsü (milk pudding with shredded chicken breast in it – I know it sounds weird but you really can’t tell there’s chicken in it), keşkül (almond pudding), kazandibi (upside-down milk pudding), and aşure (a milk pudding with a huge mix of things in it including raisins, beans, apricots, figs, orange, cranberries, barley and chickpeas, also known as Noah’s pudding. The legend regarding the origins of aşure goes as follows: "When the Flood finally subsided and Noah's Ark settled on Mt. Ararat, those onboard wanted to hold a celebration as an expression of the gratitude they felt towards God. But alas, the food storages of the ship were practically empty and so they resorted to making a soup with all the remaining ingredients they could find and thereby ended up with aşure.). Note, a lot of these desserts come topped with pistachios, so let them know in advance if you don’t want any on yours.
A couple examples of fruit-based desserts are ayva tatlısı (quince dessert) and kabak tatlısı (pumpkin dessert). Turkish cakes and tarts generally have fruit in them as well.
A few other desserts you might come across 
Lokumwhich didn’t fit into one of those 3 categories are lokum (Turkish delights), lokma (Turkish donuts), kurabiye (Turkish cookies), helva (a thick tahini-based dessert), and profiteroles (cream puffs covered in chocolate sauce – these aren’t actually Turkish but the ones you get in Turkey are better than what you can find in the U.S.).
Four Turkish drinks are worth mentioning. The first is tea. While there’s nothing that special about Turkish tea, the important thing is that Turks drink a lot of it, at all hours of the day. Tea is to Turks like coffee is to Americans, which brings me to the second drink, Turkish coffee. If you’re a big coffee drinker, don’t worry you can find 
RakıStarbucks and Gloria Jean’s in Turkey, but even better, you can get yourself some Turkish coffee which is a strong coffee very similar to espresso. After you’ve drank your coffee if you’re lucky, you might even convince someone to tell you your fortune using your coffee grinds. The third drink is ayran, a very popular yogurt drink. Yes, a yogurt drink sounds a bit strange, but you really should try it. It goes great with kebab. Last but not least is rakı. Rakı, also called lion’s milk, is similar to Ouzo or Sambuca. It is a 90 proof alcoholic drink generally mixed with water and ice. It got its nickname from the fact that it is a clear liquid but turns white when water is added to it. Rakı is made from aniseed so it tastes like licorice and is definitely an acquired taste. It goes particularly well with fish. You’ll also find lots of juices in Turkey that you don’t have in the U.S. – apricot, peach and vişne (sour cherry) to name a few.
