Anne,
You are probably right in trying to get a bit of interest, we did not think of that when we bought.
We transfered our money from the UK via the bank into our sterling account at Finans in Fethyie, our thinking was that all the way through negotiation we had talked about sterling. This cost us £25 and was in Turkey the following day. As soon as our man wanted the money we faxed the bank permission to release the agreed amount, this transfer to him cost us nothing, (other than the cost of the fax, of course, and he had his money that afternoon.
You would be probably better transfering before you go but how can you unless your account has been set up already?
Peter