Jon Sopel

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Just before Donald Trump left Washington to come on this gruelling trip, the word was he would have given anything to get out of it or anything to shorten it.

One, he likes his home comforts - not that Air Force One is exactly slumming it - and two, he knew that all his critics were waiting for him to do something gauche or stupid in some faraway foreign clime.

But that simply hasn't happened. He has navigated his first foreign trip with aplomb.

Yes, there have been odd little moments that have caused eyebrows to arch and social media to fizz.

Melania batting his hand away when he tried to hold it. There was the moment that Bibi introduced them in Israel as "the President Donald Trump and the first wife".

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Before Donald Trump became president he would often spend days holed up in Trump Tower in New York, shuttling in a private elevator between his penthouse apartment and office.

And it's been a similar story since he moved into the White House, where he divides his time between the East and West Wings, leaving only to spend weekends at Trump-branded resorts.

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Washington's big night of pomp and politics - and from the fledgling president a disciplined performance and a well-crafted speech.

From the get-go it was clear this was going to be something different.

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Today totally typified the unexpected and unpredictable nature of covering the 45th president of the United States.

I was at home, working on a book I am trying to finish when there was a flash on the TV: Donald Trump to hold unscheduled news conference in an hour's time.

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As with any resignation there are a thousand small, but nevertheless important questions. Most are of the who-knew-what-and-when variety. But with this astonishing fall from grace there is one big overarching question. I'll save that best bit for last.

The small questions concern whether Donald Trump knew about the calls Mike Flynn was making to the Russian ambassador, and what the substance of their conversations were.

Donald Trump's victory has not only written a new astonishing chapter in American political history, it brings the Obama era to an end in a way few imagined just a year ago.

So how will the first black president be remembered?

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Donald Trump is a hugely effective communicator.

A famous entertainer once said of him he's the best live performer who doesn't sing and doesn't play a musical instrument. He communicates brilliantly clearly.

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"The greatest show on earth" was PT Barnum's claim for his three ring circus.

I'm not sure that is the right description for the 2016 US election campaign, but some variation on that must come close - maybe instead of 'greatest' we could have weirdest, most compelling, unpredictable, disturbing, hate-filled, bizarre.

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When it's all over. Oh, when it's all over.

The weekend after the election I have three invitations to parties, each in their own way heralding the end of an election that has had a gestation period longer than an elephant. One being thrown by British friends will introduce Americans to Guy Fawkes night - an occasion celebrated to mark the thwarting of a dastardly plot by an insurgent outsider who tried to put a bomb under the establishment (why does that theme feel familiar?).

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I'm going to do a Boris. That is to say looking both ways at once.

Let me explain for those of you who don't know what that means: Ahead of the referendum on Britain's membership in the EU, Boris Johnson, now the UK's foreign secretary, wrote two articles for the Daily Telegraph - one arguing why Britain should leave, the other why it should stay.