We tend to buy I Tunes vouchers for downloading music and things. They are sold in a lot of stores including pharmacies and we use them as stocking stuffers in Ireland. You can buy them in different dollar levels and they are the size of a credit card so easy to travel back with.
As a matter of interest, how did you use the $ itune card?
I was given a gift of an iTune card but could not use it. iTunes would not let me use the $ voucher as I set my account up as an Irish account when I first registered. I put it down to some restriction used by Apple due to the price differentiation in different markets. Is there a way around this?