My Walk Along the Emajõgi (Mother River)

After spending most of the day enjoying my new high-speed internet connection and skyping with my mom, nephew Rylan, and dog Tank (with Zane in the background sleeping) I decided I needed to get out of the dorm considering how beautiful of a day it is in Tartu. 

My little walk took me from my dorm room down across the walking bridge on Raatuse and along a very nice river trail and park where there are quite a few historical monuments.

 Raatuse Street; this section is obviously pedestrians only. Ahead is the famous walking bridge crossing the Emajõgi and leading to Tartu Town Center.

Tartu residents out and about walking along the river; there's only a couple weeks of this weather left so everyone's enjoying it while they can!

Ducks in the river

Shot of the trail/park

More of the river trail

The walking bridge I'll use every day to get to class. The shore on the left is where Raatuse 22 (my dorm; everyone here calls the buildings by what their street names are) is, the shore on the right is town center where the university is located.

I kept wanting to take pictures because it's really pretty

There seemed to be a couple boat tours on the river; I may have to get more info about that

These pictures are all of a monument to Estonian-Armenian friendship. Hopefully you can read the plaque and it will explain itself

Tartu statue of liberty commemorating the Estonian war of Independence (see plaque)

Finnish fast food chain that's everywhere around here and is apparently pretty  good/popular. This one's right on the river.

Another shot of the walking bridge

The Atlantis cafe (how perfect) and its outdoor seating which was our first meal in Estonia as Atlantis students.

All in all it was a very nice walk that was a half hour well spent. Maybe I'll make another excursion in the coming weeks and try to photo-document it. For now I'm going to relax; the Erasmus program here is doing a pub crawl tonight (The Erasmus program is a European exchange program that functions as a sort of semester-long vacation for its participants, but they let me tag along to their events). One of my Estonian friends who lives in Tallinn also may be visiting Tartu tonight, so it should be a full day!