last day, lease signing, and fete de la musique

I finished the English oral exams yesterday! Now, I just have to submit the marks, and I'm done!! Woot woot! Though it's kind of sad. I love the students at the school, and I have the best colleagues ever. After the exams, I had lunch with Jane. She's so awesome. And then, next week, all my language colleagues are taking me out to lunch at my favorite restaurant here.

Brazilian and I have also officially signed a lease. I'm moving very very far!! I'm moving... wait for it... next door! My landlords also own the house next door, and when it became free, they had us take a look. It's not a huge house, but it's much bigger than what either of us has at the moment. Plus, it's so cheap! We're getting the keys tonight, and we can start moving whenever. They're not pushing me out the door of this place either, so I'll have time to pack up, move things out, and then clean. So sweet.

With the lease signed, I finally purchased a (very expensive) ticket home for the summer so I can get a new visa. I'll be home for a little less than a month starting in mid July. God, that's already less than a month away. Crazy!

Yesterday was also the Fete de la Musique (Music Festival) here in France. It's every June 21 to celebrate the start of summer and the longest day of the year. Unfortunately, summer in the North of France has yet to get that memo, and we're still hovering somewhere around mid to early spring. Anyway, after work, I took the train to Lille and met up with Denise and some people who were already there. Once out of work, J. came to join us as well. Thanks to a torrential downpour that we got caught in, a lot of the official concerts were postponed for a bit (the one in Valenciennes was even canceled). After not finding anything interesting, we opted to go to a friend's for a bit. He just moved to Lille with his girlfriend a few months before, and I hadn't seen him since. It was nice to catch up with them.

The weather, though it was predicted to be stormy, ended up turning quite nice after the first storm. People were starting to fill the streets and music drifted from everywhere. However, we were so beat that once we all headed out from our friend's place to finally enjoy the festivities, we decided to leave the others and crash. I had so much on my mind the night before (lease signing, ticket buying, visa stuff, exams, etc) that I hardly slept and was up early. My eyes were definitely starting to close.

Now, it's the weekend! I think it's time to celebrate the signing of the lease and just relax!