The Adventures of Leeuwarden: Part I

It was meant to be an adventure. But that the adventure will have a turbulent start like THIS was something which probably no one of the five Music Production students was expecting.

Dutch student Sjoerd and TAMK student Mika talking about the work on their pop song.

The whole group with alumni Freek (left) while the presentation of the songs. 

Sunday noon: some of the second year music students are together with teacher Janne Tauriainen on the way to Leeuwarden. Leeuwarden is a small town right in the heart of the Netherlands and the home of the Academie voor Popcultuur. Five of our TAMK music students got an invitation to visit the university and collaborate with five Dutch students in a co-songwriting week. The idea about the project is to create at least 25 songs which will might be produced and published afterwards.
To make out of this idea a more than thrilling matter the teachers from both universities decided to choose students from different backgrounds of music. Rap, pop or singer/songwriter are just some of the genres the participants coming from.
Each day of the songwriting week one Finnish student will match together with one Dutch student to create a song for a specific theme. The range of topics will cover at the end of the week pop, alternative, EDM, ballad and “There is no i in Team”. To get a good support, the Dutch teachers decided to bring also five alumnis on board who will help the students while they are working on the songs.
TAMK student Anna together with Guido from the Netherlands while the presentation.
Alvaro and Michelle working on their co-write pop song.

Right now we are really sitting in the Popacademie and writing pop songs – something which non of the Finnish participants actually expected on Sunday evening. Because this one became big, big Black Sunday:
After arriving in Helsinki airport we got the news that our flight to Stockholm got actually cancelled. Rescheduled we found ourselves waiting in Helsinki airport for a few hours, waiting for the boarding to Copenhagen first and afterwards to Amsterdam. Even if we were quite tight in the schedule we were able to make it to Leeuwarden – at least we thought so. The Black Sunday kept running.
Landed to Amsterdam airport we just figured out that at least more than half of the luggage got lost. Not nice, especially for the students who mostly got gear in their bags. After getting a tiny little survival kid from the airport (including monster XL-shirt, teeth brush, vaseline (?) or deodorant), we missed the train to Leeuwarden. Which is not that bad if it would have NOT been the last train at the evening.
After the helpless tries to find any way to get there in the night, we were forced to stay in the airport, waiting for the first train to Leeuwarden at 05.37am. That was the point where the actual adventure became unforgettable.
The “Hello Goodbye Bar” was the perfect place for the loooooong wait. Deeper explanations might not be needed. In between some of us made some more or less interesting friends. If it was the nice taxi driver with the great humor, the strange Burger King worker, the nice train ticket seller who was making hardly fun about us going to Leeuwarden or the Greece chick who was more than excited when she heard the name “Lordi”. Highlights which will none of us forget that soon. After having a few naps on the airport floor and few more beers in the “Hello Goodbye Bar”, we were finally ready to go to Leeuwarden.
Survival Kit

Two bags found the way to Amsterdam, the rest: missing.

It was 9.30 am when we were sitting at the breakfast table reflecting the last 24 hours. The bags are still missing (but hopefully already on their way), few hours of sleep got caught up and the music boogie is already in the creative running. More adventures will happen in these days but one is for sure: it cannot get worser! It can only get better and that’s for sure!

To be continued ...
Alvaro being productive at the airport at 2.00 am ... 

... while others decided to take a nap on the airport floor.