[jballanc]

Heh...you really do need to visit Turkey. Turkcell didn't advertise that they were giving everyone unlimited texts. There was no article in the national paper about Turkcell giving unlimited texts. They did it because it was proper, and hospitable. In short, Turkish hospitality is very different from the examples you gave.

Trust me, if you ever care to visit Ankara, tell me and I will show you Turkish hospitality.

(Or, as odd as it sounds, Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" episode on Istanbul does an amazingly good job of capturing the essence of modern Turkish culture...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ojatA-Xqhk)

[smsm42]

I have visited Turkey in the past briefly, and it was nice, though I did not notice any special hospitality not encountered in other places. Maybe I just wasn't lucky.

Unfortunately, since I'm Jewish I'm not sure it would be wise for me to visit Turkey again now, due to recent developments... it seems like the hospitality for me might be a bit limited now. http://www.radikal.com.tr/Radikal.aspx?aType=RadikalDetayV3&... http://jcpa.org/article/present-day-anti-semitism-in-turkey/

Maybe sometime in the future... Sorry for getting a bit off-topic here.

[jballanc]

Off topic indeed, but this year's Eurovision singer from Turkey was Jewish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can_Bonomo). Not to say there isn't anti-semitism, but I think it is much less in Turkey than you might think.