Pete's Log: Silly GeoGuessr

Entry #2103, (Random Crap)
(posted when I was 43 years old.)

GeoGuessr is one of those things I'll forget exists for months at a time and then suddenly become obsessed with again and lose hours to. It's great for just getting my brain to shut up for a little while. It's also occasionally frustrating.

Today I explored two "new" countries, achieving gold for both: 24,986 points for Canada and 24,976 points for Switzerland.

I also set out to finally achieve a gold score for Germany. One would think Germany would be easy for me, but I've been stuck on silver for a while since GeoGuessr in Germany isn't actually much fun. Google street view in Germany has lots of things blurred out, including many street signs (The GeoGuessr subreddit calls it Blurmany). Additionally, lots of streets aren't actually available in street view, even in urban areas, so you end up with lots of dead ends where the street keeps going but GeoGuessr/Street View won't let you continue. So it's tricky.

But today I succeeded. I got lucky that three rounds put me in locations I was able to sufficiently explore to find my location (in Berlin, Hamburg and Stuttgart). The other two rounds were annoying though. One of them put me in a residential neighborhood, but street view dead ended at all exits I could find out of the neighborhood. But I found a poster that let me know I was in Mannheim and it looked like there was a large natural area to the North, so given that and the street names in the neighborhood it didn't actually take too long to find it.

The other one dropped me in a race track. The Lausitzring to be specific. I had never heard of it before. I was able to move around the track some and even managed to get on a service road, but wasn't able to escape beyond that.

There were a few ads along the track, though. One mentioned Brandenburg. Another was for McDonald's Senftenberg. So armed with that information, I panned around Brandenburg until I spotted Senftenberg. Then I was able to zoom in and find the Lausitzring. I guess part of me is proud that I solved the puzzle. But also that might be the last time I play Germany in GeoGuessr. Final score: 24,963.