Ayşegül Yayla

Leiden'dan mektubunuz var! Her bölümde bir aşk göçmeninin Hollanda'ya yerleşim gözlemlerini dinleyebilirsiniz. Dümdüz bir ülke, kanallar, bisikletler, ilişkiler, eğitim ve iş bulma çabaları... Spotify ve daha birçok platformdan dinleyebilmek için: https://anchor.fm/leidenmektuplar

You may have heard of the saying that tourism is the industry without chimneys. However Cappadocia is an antithesis for this saying. Because it is full of fairy chimneys! Last week we spent three days in Cappadocia. The fairy chimneys were like a celebration of geological rock formations in the middle of Anatolian moors. We landed to Kayseri Airport in the morning of Tuesday, picked up by the tourism agency and brought to our little cave hotel made of regional rocks. Afterwar

Players: 1–5 Playing time: 90–115 min Boardgamegeek.com rating: 8.3 Designer: Jamey Stegmaier Artist: Jakub Rozalski Publisher: Stonemaier Games Type: Strategy Category: Economic, fighting, science fiction, territory building Mechanisms: Area control, grid movement, variable player powers Theme: Alternate history It’s time for another board game review: Scythe by Stonemaier Games. Retro is the new cool. Who wouldn’t like the glamour of roaring twenties? But don’t get confused

Players: 1–6 Playing time: 45–90 min Boardgamegeek.com rating: 8.1 Designer: Morten Monrad Pedersen, Jamey Stegmaier, Alan Stone Artist: Jacqui Davis, David Montgomery, Beth Sobel Publisher: Stonemaier Games Type: Strategy Category: Economic, farming Mechanisms: Hand management, worker placement Country: Italy Theme: Farming, viticulture, wine games Do you like wine? How about growing some grapes under the Tuscan sun? Viticulture is my number one board game of all time. Maybe

Dear board game geeks and alike, I have a relatively new hobby for two years now. It all started with the gateway game called Pandemic (2008) by Z-Man Games. Gateway game means the magic game that converts non-gamers into gamers! Since then I’ve played tens of different games multiple times. With my partner we organized and participated in many game nights with our friends at homes and cafes. We went a little off the hook as we lost track of what we owned when our collection

This week I wanted to write about the artist in the “Meal Ticket” chapter of the Joel and Ethan Coen film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) on Netflix. A low budget producer (Liam Neeson) travels in the nineteenth century Wild West with a quadruple amputee artist (Harry Melling). I found this story captivating and gloomy at the same time. It gives a hardcore representation of how tragic it is to be an intellectual artist in the entertainment industry. Because the setting is

Cin Ali’yi hatırladınız mı? Hani okumayı sökerken bize yardım eden sevimli çöpten çocuk karakter. Ben harfleri heceleri yan yana koyar koymaz ilk bu on kitaplık Cin Ali serisini okumuştum. Yıl 1994. Sonra büyüdüm kendim yazdım çizdim. Hasbelkader yabancı bir eşim oldu. Ona Türkçe öğretmek için Cin Ali’ye başvurdum. Eşimin komiklik yaparak seriyi okuması, çevirmesi ve anlaması açısından iyi de oldu. Son kitaptayız. Son kitabın resimleri renkli bu arada! Unutmuş olabilirsiniz.

When visiting my childhood room this January, I found a golden picture in a time capsule I had prepared in 2006 for my future self. This is the picture of a small painting by Bahri Genç made in Kadıköy, Istanbul, at Simurg Art Atelier on March 29, 2006. He had found my crazy hair inspirational and asked me to be his model for this sketch! I was in 11th grade and was drafting a short story that I cannot recall now for Mr. Andrew’s Creative Writing class at my beloved high scho

I came across a book couple of weeks ago through a colleague. It was The Culture Map by Erin Meyer. I was eager to learn more about the communication challenges of international people with pretty different backgrounds working together because I am working at such an office in the Netherlands. I read the book quickly and got so fascinated that I even asked my team lead to add it as a pre-requisite for the future employees. Next thing I saw was that she was ordering the book o

While visiting New York City in late October 2018 for my dad’s 60th birthday, we went up one of the skyscrapers of Manhattan, like a good tourist, to take a look at the concrete jungle for inspiration. Actually the whole city was almost demanding attention from every corner and I felt like I had do it good for a memorable experience of the Big Apple with an Empire state of mind. Despite having grown up in Istanbul and being used to the historical monuments, colorful daily lif

I watched last week the movie Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse. I’m no Spider-fan, yet it was a-mazing! Also the Spider-man Noir was the coolest Spider-man I’ve ever seen. I didn’t know such a version existed. So I got hyped about it and got the two volumes published ten years ago and read them at once on iPad Kindle app. I loved it! It has such a great quality of story by David Hine and Fabrice Sapolsky and art by Carmino Di Giandomenico. I wish there was more of this Noir

This is a part of the PhD application I prepared for the “Collective action in Istanbul’s informal neighborhoods” project at University of Amsterdam. My application did not result positively but I really enjoyed doing the research about it. Reading Mike Davis' Planet of Slums book on the subject was especially great. This proposal would be an interdisciplinary approach to analyze the gecekondus of Istanbul. So please read all the "I will"s as "I would"s since probably someon

An amazing account of the extend of horrors the former GDR caused on the lives of approx. 17 million East German citizens. As Anna Funder by concerned about it, these stories of individual people will not be remembered within a couple of generations and the existence of Berlin Wall will be forgotten. I think it’s a must read for anyone interested in understanding the complete picture pf the twentieth century German history. #stasiland #germany #berlinwall

Ayşe: Rahat ve huzur içinde yaşayan Merhaba, ben Ayşe Öğretmen. Eskişehir’in Odunpazarı’nda otururduk. Cumhuriyet’in ilk kadın öğretmenlerindenim. İşimi çok sevdim. Çok öğrenci okuttum, mezun ettim. Rol modeli oldum birçoklarına. 1902’de Eskişehir’de doğdum. Adaşım olan teyzem büyüttü beni. Okuma yazma öğretti. Öğretmen olarak çalışmaya başlayınca Muhittin’le tanıştım. Müfettişlik yapıyordu. Uzatmalı bir nişanlısı vardı ama onun yerine benimle evlendi. 1920’lerde üç oğlumuz o

Sevgisun (Fatma): Sevgi, dostluk göster anlamında 1941’de Söğüt’te doğdum. Kıvırcık saçlarımdan dolayı beni Şirley (Shirley Temple) diye severlerdi. Okulun ilk günü zil çalınca dışarı koştuğum için öğretmen beni dövdü. Babam da öğretmene kızıp herkesin içinde hıncını benden aldı. Ben dokuz yaşındayken öldü. İlkokuldan sonrasını okumadım. Ablam evlenince annemle Bursa’ya ipek fabrikasında çalışmaya gittik. Bana mışır mışır yaprak yiyen ipek böceklerini tartma görevini verdiler

It was an interesting coincidence that the diplomatic crisis between Turkey and the Netherlands took place in March 2017, while I, as a Turkish citizen married to a Dutch citizen living in the Netherlands, had already begun to follow an online course on global diplomacy. It was, and still is, a complicated issue between the foreign ministers and also the nationals. After the Dutch PM Rutte’s government denied the landing of the Turkish FM Cavusoglu’s plane to the Netherlands,

serendipity (n.) finding something good without looking for it This is about how I ended up having a life in harmony in the Netherlands in my late twenties. For those who don’t know me, I’m an expat in The Hague who went through the difficult times of integration to a new culture and job market. In my early twenties, to be honest, I didn’t know what I would do after having a bachelor’s degree in Cultural Studies and a minor in Art Theory and Criticism. I really liked the

Geçen gün falcıya gittim. İnanmam öyle şeylere ama arkadaşlar ısrar etti, kıramadım. Bir orta şekerli söyledim. İçip kapattım. Başımın üstünde çevirdim, "Neyse halim çıksın falim!" dedim, kendime doğru döndürüp masanın üstüne koydum. Aradan biraz zaman geçti, fincan soğudu. Falcı hanım beni çağırdı, dedi ki, "Senin için kararmış. Tuhaf zamanlardan geçiyorsun. Aklını bir türlü başına toplayamıyorsun. Karar verip bir adım atamıyorsun. Etrafında çok fazla şey oluyor ve sen bunla

IMDB’nin sitesindeki yorumların aksine, ne yalan söyleyeyim, Birdman veya (Cahilliğin Umulmayan Erdemi) (2014) filmini üzerinde düşünülmesi gereken bir film olarak takdire şayan buldum. Bakın benim gibi tembel bir blogcuyu bile yazdırıyor. Filmin yönetmeni, senaristi ve oyuncuları hakkında fazla bir şey söyleyemeyeceğim. Sadece başrollerin çok kararında oynandığını ve hatta zaman zaman “Vay Edward Norton’a bak be!” denilebileceğini düşünüyorum. Konu hakkında bir şeyler söyley

Bu ülkede çocuk olmak zor. Bu ülkede genç olmak zor. Bu ülkede kadın olmak çok zor. Bu ülkede eşcinsel olmak çok zor. Bu ülkede erkek olmak zor. Bu ülkede yaşlı olmak zor. Bu ülkede engelli olmak zor. Bu ülkede fakir olmak çok zor. Bu tanımlar saymakla bitmez ama bu ülkede vicdanlı insan olarak kalmak çok ama çok çok zor! Adaletin bu mu? Buna adalet değil cinayet dağıtmak denir. Her aileden bir can almadan için rahat etmeyecek herhalde. Polisine vur diyeceksin milletin gözüne