It's Thursday evening and the Traveling Geeks are at the Europa Awards to celebrate European startups.

The place is already filling up when I get to the venue for the Europa awards in south London. Things don't look good because I have just one invite and I have my son Matt with me and my friend Heddi Cundle. And security is very tight -- they are turning away everyone without a ticket (it's a $100 entry).

However, a little smooth talking, and a little confusion at the front, and we slip in fairly easily.

I won't bore you with who won what. (The Europas: The Winners and Finalists)

Throughout the week I'd been hearing complaints from various startups that the awards favored the pals of TechCrunch Europe and specific VC firms but I can't verify those claims. There were certainly lots of very worthy startups that didn't get a mention. And a lot of the awards went to well established firms like the popular Spotify, and the highly funded SpinVox - hardly startups.

Mike Butcher, the very capable editor of Techcrunch Europe did a great job of MCing an increasingly loud and alcohol fueled event of a type we don't get in the US.

(Throughout the trip fellow TGer Craig (Cheap Date) Newmark constantly remarked and marveled at the amount of drinking by the Brits. The ubiquitous TG companion Paul Carr said his drinking was inspired by Charles Bukowski.)

I had a great time at the event and I spoke with lots of interesting entrpreneurs. I'd like to single out for special attention Mathys von Abbe from the fast growing Dutch startup Moby Picture; also, the impressive Hermione Way, founder of Newspepper; and Alexander Ljung, founder of Soundcloud (Europa winner.)

You can see them all and more, in the short video of "SVW Goes to the Europas..." (It's a little pixelated at first but settles down quickly.)