What we Loved This Week: CouchSurfing, Sushi and ‘Till the Sun Turns Black’

Travel Blog  •  World Hum  •  01.18.08 | 2:03 PM ET

imageWorld Hum contributors share a favorite travel-related thing they read, saw, heard or experienced in the past seven days.

Michael Yessis
Helvetica is a documentary about a typeface, but, as we’ve noted, it’s the perfect travel typeface. American Airlines, Lufthansa and the New York City subway system are among those who use the typeface, and the film follows its migration from Switzerland throughout Europe and the United States. It’s beautifully shot, something I didn’t expect from a film about a ubiquitous font. Here’s a montage shot in Berlin:

Eva Holland
I finally got around to watching It’s All Gone Pete Tong, a mockumentary about a hard-partying Ibiza club DJ who goes deaf. It’s a strange mixture of “Trainspotting” and the story of Helen Keller, and despite being a comedy it offers up the ugliest portrait of addiction and collapse that I’ve seen since “Requiem for a Dream.” It was mostly filmed on location in Ibiza and while the result isn’t necessarily flattering for the Spanish party island, it has at least made me curious.

Jim Benning
I had some rolls from my favorite Mexican sushi joint, Sushi Itto. It’s a Mexican-owned sushi chain with roughly 80 locations around the world, including Spain, Guatemala and El Salvador. Fifty outlets are in Mexico City, and two outlets happen to be in San Diego. Their straight sushi is okay, but what I really love are the Mexican fusion rolls like the Cuauhtemitto, filled with breaded crab and avocado, wrapped in manchego cheese and drizzled with spicy chipotle sauce—riquísimo!

Terry Ward
My Orlando work week was so made so much more interesting thanks to CouchSurfing, which brought a few far corners of the world to mine. On Tuesday, I met with a contractor based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia who gave me the lowdown on diving the Red Sea off Jeddah. And last night I hit the town with two brothers from Sao Paolo who demonstrated Brazilian bikini bottom sizes through artful cocktail napkin origami.

Joanna Kakissis
After three days in Thessaly, which the Greeks have sadly turned into a dumping ground for trash, I drove back to Athens in a gloomy mood. As darkness covered the ruined landscape, I popped in Ray LaMontagne‘s “Till the Sun Turns Black” and lingered on this line in the title track: “Time goes slowly when you’re only waiting till the sun turns black.” Ray channels the heartbreak of a lost paradise, and as the sky turned black that night I was feeling it deeply.

Here’s LaMontagne’s performance of the song at the Royal Albert Hall:

Share your own favorite travel-related thing you read, saw, heard or experienced this week in the comments.

Related on World Hum:
* What we Loved This Week: ‘Heat,’ Home and Pomegranates

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2 Comments for What we Loved This Week: CouchSurfing, Sushi and ‘Till the Sun Turns Black’

BlueFinn 04.03.08 | 9:36 AM ET

I’ve recently been traveling Thailand and ventured along to a few different couchsurfing gatherings in different locations. I’ve never seen a bigger bunch of brainless and dangerous losers in my life. My advise is to give anyone who even mentions couchsurfing an extremely wide berth.

THECOMMENTER 07.11.08 | 8:54 PM ET

bleufinn i totally agree!te

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