My Europe trip in February and March 2010 is in its final hours. I have about 30 hours of sitting on a plane to get back to New Zealand, and then it’s at an end.

I’ve had a blast. I have really enjoyed being here — seeing new things, going to new countries (Norway, Ireland, Hong Kong — on the way home!), and going through Heathrow lots of times. Seriously, I really like Heathrow … there’s something about what it means for international travel that make me stand in wonderment. Perhaps put me through here another 100 times and I’ll become cynical about the place, like most other people I meet!

I’ve met great people on this trip; some for a second or subsequent time, some for the first time. I’m not going to mention everyone, so this is just a partial list, but my thanks to:
– Kurt from IntraTeam, for the invitation to come in the first place. You looked after me so well; thanks.
– Martin from Intranet Focus, for the “chat over breakfast” at IntraTeam. I’ve been thinking about what we talked about, and as you will have noticed, have implemented one of your points immediately.
– Jane from NetStrategy JMC, great to meet you for the first time (after discussions via other channels), to hear your presentation and workshop, and to learn more about your work. Looking forward to seeing where you take your stuff next.
– Frederik, Mark, Sam, Sharon, and many, many other at the IntraTeam conference, thanks. And thanks (publicly) to Sam and Sharon for helping me get to my hotel in London after IntraTeam. That was a huge, huge help!
– Ray in London, thanks for the good chat and overview of how you are helping customers with Groove and SharePoint.
– James and Carmel in Oxford … good to meet up with the two of you again. Thanks for showing me the sights.
– James from Step Two … good to see you in Copenhagen and London! Enjoyed the chat on Sunday afternoon … hope your equally crazy travel this week has gone off okay.
– Julie in London … thanks for the opportunity to work with you on Monday around SharePoint governance. Hope things have gone well for the rest of the week.
– Anders and team in Norway … thanks for the invite, and the conversation throughout the day. I was sorry that I missed meeting Fredrik … next time, okay?
– Eoghan in Ireland, for playing point man on getting me there, and then making sure I got to the various places I needed to be. Thanks for making it happen, and for your input (and others from Storm) and work behind the scenes in getting 65 (!!) people to the SharePoint Roadmap masterclass in Ireland. Well done. And thanks for the Microsoft Ireland people for hosting the event, too.
– Seb in London … good to meet you finally, and thanks for coordinating the details for a great session today.

I’ve given numerous presentations while over here … and people have asked how I found them. I always look out for people laughing, talking, engaging, thinking, questioning … and I’ve been so pleased that all of that happened. So … the presentations have gone great, on that basis.

A couple of funny things (okay, funny to me), happened over here.
– At Microsoft in Ireland, they graciously gave an XBOX 360 as the prize draw for people who handed in their registration forms. There were three copies of SharePoint Roadmap left too, so I added those into the mix … but I called the XBOX 360 the “runner-up” prize, and one of the copies of SharePoint Roadmap as the “grand prize”. I don’t think anyone feel for that, though!
– And then also at Microsoft Ireland, you can’t pay cash for things in the canteen; you have to have a card and a staff account. My sore throat was hanging out for a lemonade, but I couldn’t pay the cashier via €1. But rather than walking out without the lemonade, I turned to the person behind me in the line and said, “I want this drink. I can’t buy it with this €1. Can you buy it on your account, and I’ll give you the euro?” It worked. I got my drink!

Finally, thanks to everyone who put up with my sore sounding voice this week. Next time … I’ll sound like I usually sound!

Ok … boarding time. It’s 747-400 time …