I finally found a reason to keep a diary.

It's called a £404 flight from Helsinki to Bangkok on a cold February morning, a £45 flight from Bangkok to Denpasar and a 90 minute drive from the airport to a remote location. God knows what after that. And the four months preceding it; a nine-to-five job, dullness and bad lipstick.

Photos, useless sentences, enough to suffocate you, whatever; you know the deal. surfingissin.blogspot.com.

Barcelona, Zaragoza, Bilbao, San Sebastian, Biarritz, Nice, Torino, Lyon and I'm hooked to this. Tomorrow: train from Lyon Part-Dieu to Paris.

My red notebook is filling up with notes from cities that pass faster than I would hope, with names of people I'll probably never meet. My mind's filling up with images of faces I don't want to forget, moments racing in a car down the narrow streets of Nice, miniature love stories on Boulevard Victor Hugo and feeling blue on the way to the next city.

The rhythm of leaving is catching up on the soles of my shoes; it was hard at first but it gets easier. Letting go is becoming more bearable. Even if there are moments when you doubt it, your next great encounter is on its way: down the street, on the morning train, in a city three hours away. You lose your faith, but you get back on your feet; the possibilities make travelling so addicting.

I don't have the time to take any pictures, neither would I want to. I want everyone to stay bright in my memory, not as fading colours in a picture book. Change is always constant and pictures could slow it down, but I don't want to risk losing the moment.

I won't be updating this blog anymore, since it doesn't feel important anymore. I've seen and learnt so much, I've experienced feelings so precious I don't know how to share them, how to put them into words so that they could be translated in the right way.

I'm off to Paris. There's still so much to see, so many people to meet, so many things to learn.

Near King's cross, last autumn, snapped by Milla

Helsinki has indeed made me laugh and cry and yell and scream. I haven't escaped from rainy nights or silent moments, but I've gotten bits and bobs here and there that could be mistaken for small adventures; walking in the rain at 4am to hop into a car that was made decades before I was born and meeting a parisian boy with whom I talked politics and all kinds of nonsense while struggling to find the right words.

I can't put this into words so I'll turn it into a list: Barcelona, Bilbao, San Sebastian, Bordeaux, Lyon, Nice, Marseille, the scary unknown for a month and hearts racing.

I'll be saying my I miss yous tomorrow, the last ones at the airport on Thursday, but I know some of them will get stuck in my throat. I'll be leaving unfinished things behind, like I always do. One day I'll learn to leave properly.

When I come back it'll almost be Autumn and things will have changed but not very much after all. Perhaps I will have changed. But not that much after all.

Eight days until my plane takes off from Helsinki-Vantaa. My last Helsinki-days so far have included cigarettes, cheap clothes, Hämeentie in both directions and a constant need to push some people away while pulling others closer.

I'm hoping Helsinki will bring me enough heartache and misery and overwhelming feelings in the eight days to come so that I won't miss it too much during my time away.

I can't get any sleep so I'm staying awake.

Home again, maps in front of me, calls to make, jobs to seek, tickets to buy, things to do.

I have a week of lazing around, swimming in a river and drinking too much sugary apple cider behind me; a couple of quite busy weeks ahead of me.

Summer's hasting on and I'm trying to keep my calm.

A quick pit-stop home before continuing this trip of mine.

Since leaving Helsinki on Monday afternoon I've realized that I actually don't like Suede very much, that my confusion isn't going nowhere quick, that I'm huge on procrastination and postponing decision-making, that I'm a bit scared of what's to come and that if my face was a bit finer and my body a bit slimmer I'd be a portrait craché of my mother in the beginning of the 80's. Right down to the bright coral bikini tops and distressed denim.

Dis-moi ce que tu penses de ma vie, de mon adolescence, Sébiastien Tellier's been echoing in my head for the whole day.

I'm going to take a time-out from this life of mine, first 500 km away from Helsinki, then switching to a location 120 km away. Feels good to let things go for a week, I'm especially looking forward to the 120 km one: a good road trip and a few laughs.

Running for the thrill of it, I suppose.