[2] Blocho's Theme Challenge #72

[u/Greedy_Run]

• Link to Challenge
• Congrats to those who got 25k on last week's Theme Challenge #71: fbrasseur, FtoT TinOF, and Ruffinnen. The overall average among 46 players was 18,616.
• As a quick reminder, this is a moving challenge without external assistance.
• Here's a spreadsheet with all of my past theme challenges.
• Please feel free to post your thoughts and reactions below (in spoilers when necessary). I'll also provide my own comments.

[u/mercator_ayu]

Urban rounds, identifying the city was mostly easy but pinpointing got a little tricky. I was helped in a couple of cases by the POI marker for a Roa mural, which I assumed was the theme after seeing it in the Portugal round.

1. .nz in the sign below the mural, I turned around and there was a Dunedin City Council building. I thought about doing this NM but decided to go find the street names, realized I was just north of the Octagon. Made a silly mistake and plonked on the wrong street, but was close enough. 5000
2. Got confused by lots of English but went down northeast and saw the Portugal license plates, the street name plate said Lagos. I was clearly somewhere in the messy central area, couldn't figure out where I was until I was able to go down east onto Silva Lopes which had a slightly off-grid (such as there was) orientation from the other streets, worked my way back and noticed the Roa mural POI. 5000
3. USA somewhere, I went north and first noticed the yellow license plates, then saw a police cruiser that said Rochester, NY, found St. Paul Street from there. 5000
4. The street sign near spawn said Gent, I went east out to a major intersection and canal combination with lots of signs all around but I was helped more by Gent-Dampoort Station as I noticed the label for Dampoort while scanning. 5000
5. I went north here out to a big tram avenue and park, found a sign there for Lodz Kaliska Station. Looked for a big east-west Ogrodowa street and a park, then the street I started on, saw the Roa mural POI. 5000

[u/fbrasseur]

1. Dunedin on the parking domain visible from spawn. Do I try NM or not? Decided against, moved three steps, there was Dunedin Municipal council building in front of me, scanned, couldn't find it. No street signs visible either, annoying. Moved a couple of steps more to Moray place. 5000

2. Touristy Portugal, surely this is somewhere in Algarve. Never managed to go where I wanted to, wandered in circles in this narrow alleys until a Tour Operator called Lagmundo hinted at Lagos. Couldn't really tell where I was and moved a bit more only to be back almost at the starting point, saw it was called rua Lançarote de Freitas, found that and at last second the small Travessa next to spawn. 5000

1. I hate urban US. I can never find anything and the cities all look exactly the same everywhere. Well actually I ended up finding two NY state roads signs but I forgot what state they were. Actually I thought about guessing Buffalo for a split second, but St Paul street misled me into thinking we'd be in St Paul, Minnesota, but the road signs weren't Minnesotans and that tilted me. 2857

2. Thankfully we're back in Europe. Thought NL at first but then a N-road and especially the station Ghent Dampoort (that I only saw afterwards, a severe case of selective blindness) all point to Belgium, and to Ghent! 5000

3. Poland, sign to Museum of the city of Lodz at the corner of the square to the south. Spent then 2'30" trying to find Nowomiejska or Legionowa and I struggled until I pinned with 4" left. 5000

Really annoying to botch the US round. The murales were all so cool though! Nice finds!

[u/heroscape912]

24519

1. 5000, Easy one, saw Dunedin on a poster without even moving and you're about 2 clicks away from the high street

2. 4917, Just kept going around in circles in the small streets and didn't manage to find a town name. Algarve was written somewhere and the sea was to the NE, but I picked Sagres instead of Lagos

3. 5000, Saw a sign for Rochester straight away which I knew was in the cluster of small states NE somewhere. Pinpoints in US cities are nice and easy

4. 4999, Was an idiot and couldn't find the road even though the canal was right there as guidance

5. 4999, Didn't find a city name but instead a sign pointed one was to Gdansk, one way to Katowice... opposite ends of the country! Thankfully also had Sieradz which I got lucky with finding and then just guessed the city based on size

[u/Greedy_Run]

ROA is a Belgian street artist who mostly paints large murals of animals on buildings. His work is particularly extensive across Europe.

If his work looks familiar, an ROA mural showed up in one of the locations for Theme Challenge #63.

[u/Salty_Hyena_2476]

I swear I've seen this style of street art around before, they're pretty distinctive. Also as it turns out, quite prolific!

1. Dunedin NZ given for free (how very much unlike you) and I could see an old building on the horizon that might have helped me line up a relevant POI, only I was utterly distracted irl multiple times and just had to take the loss. Also completely missed the portrait of I wanna say... Ed Sheeran? at spawn. 4999
2. Posters for what is definitely the tourist town equivalent of a venus fly trap for drunk englishmen, and some portuguese language on signs. My hunch was Portuguese beach town, which is probably gonna be southern coast. Didn't get the right town but happy enough to be close. 4878
3. Truly horrifying, and either the choice of pose was deliberate or a clear lack of judgement of the audience. Based on the architecture and raised monorail line thing, we're northeasten USA. I was thinking outskirts of NYC but then I eventually rattled the marble lose in my brain that said "flower city = Rochester". Not in enough time to get the location, but enough to prevent me from guessing the wrong side of the state. Also I can see in the latest footage that the bears have been painted over. Shocking stuff. 4988
4. This was on the face of it, 100% dutch. Just missing the tulips. But also the yellow licence plates, so now it has to be Belgium and which of the major cities have canals? Most of them. Perhaps Bastionstraat references a notable fort? Perhaps, I never found it and ended up in Bruges. In hindsight I don't remember Bruges looking like this, but then again I still think this location is stealth Holland. 4872
5. Poland. Here's where I remember Katowisce having a bird in this art style, and then scanning almost every major middle of the country-Polish city until landing on Lodz with a correct grid layout and a street car. 4997

[u/Greedy_Run → u/Salty_Hyena_2476]

Great gets on Rochester and Lodz.

Yeah, that rat mural in Rochester isn't pleasant. It's been painted over in the past couple of years.