Rah Rah Rilla in Russia!

So as part of our Cross Border Entrepreneurship course we were able to attend an Entrepreneurship meets Culture business week in Murmansk, Russia. This was the school we went too; Murmansk Humanities InstituteWe flew from Alta to a small Norsk town called Kirkenes, it was very near the Russian border. Though it takes 30 to fly straight from Alta to Kirkenes, our flight was not a direct one, we stopped at this small town call Vadsø, then for a 7 minute flight to Kirkenes! Though it did turn out to be around 10 minutes cause the pilot missed his landing, he came over the intercom saying he wanted us all to get our money's worth! So we met up with another class in Kirkenes and went by bus to Murmansk, the trip was made much longer because of the customs. I guess where we were entering was a very dense military region. Lots of guns, many passport checks, in and out of the bus. What a welcome to the ussr! We stayed in a very low class hotel, which just added to the adventure of it all. We had many classes; morning, afternoon and evening sessions. Some I just was not able to attend, due to shopping and site seeing distractions. The first evening my friend and i thought it would be nice to get a hair cut because it is so expensive in Norge. It is very hard to communicate what you want while speaking different languages. After a test piece of my hair turned green, I decided to go with just a cut.
One evening lecture took place on the atomic icebreaker 'lenin'. After the lecture we got a tour of the ship, it is docked in the Murmansk harbor. At the harbor there was this long fence, and on it where about a ton of locks. Lovers engraved a lock and put it on the fence, so for as long as the lock remained there their love would last! So romantical!
We went to so many markets, mostly selling fur coats and hats and vodka..
2 friends and i found the cutest cafe that we visited everyday. We pretty much tasted very cake in that place. Well i told my friend to order me a glass of hot chocolate (cause she speaks russian) and they gave a glass of melted chocolate! ha it was awesome! Exactly what everyone needs first thing in the morning, that and a creme puff.
At one souvenir shop I found the greatest matryoshka doll set. It had the last 5 american presidents inside each other!
On the return trip, we made 5 stops! It was crazy took us 4 hours total with no flight duration lasting over 15 minutes! I never had so many stops from Saskatoon to Alta.(Murmansk at night, it looked very beautiful with snow!)