VFYW: Sheep On A Shingle

For contest #336, we also bring you penis museums, trippy tunnels, fermented meats, and exploding whales.

(For this week’s View From Your Window contest, the post exceeds the content limit for Substack’s email service, so to ensure that you see the full results, click the headline above.)

First up, a little guesthouse-cleaning. From our globetrotting sleuth in Alaska, whose daughter, Quyanna, submitted the photo for the contest in Stepantsminda, Georgia:

We just read the newest View results and are laughing at the “Dish-information” issue about the precise name of the Georgian guesthouse. How ironic that Quyanna was the one who verified the Moroccan guesthouse in-person, and now she’s engaged in a controversy of her own. I’m pretty sure she knows what the guesthouse is named today, and that Chini is right this time ... but she is on an overnight train to Ankara at the moment, so I can’t ask. I’ll let her weigh in when she gets a chance ...

He follows up:

Quyanna, in fact, doesn’t know what the guesthouse was called before the name change, but she agrees that all those answers correctly identified the same building. Unfortunately, we can’t refute Chini — but we’ll keep trying. Someday, we will send you a window he can’t track down.  

On to this week, a “VERY excited” sleuth in Brooklyn writes:

I first subscribed to The Weekly Dish about a year ago, but I only discovered the VFYW contest a few months back (I think it was the contest involving the Betsy Ross American flag). I was both fascinated and intimidated. These views seemed so hard to nail down precisely, and your long-time sleuths appeared to be almost super-humanly gifted, what with the instant eyeballing of satellite-dish angles and encyclopedic knowledge of international driving regulations and such. So for the most part I’ve just been quietly observing from the sidelines and enjoying the weekly write-ups. 

But the Stepantsminda contest jolted me more than usual, because my wife and I traveled through Georgia a few years back and visited Kazbegi, which I instantly recognized. But I was still too intimidated (and short on time) to pinpoint the exact location. That contest did, however, stir me up enough to actually give it a proper attempt this week — and I think I’ve actually got it!

He indeed got it, but first let’s run through some noble misses. From our sleuth in Lone Pine:

Reykjavik, Iceland? This is a guess based on the sod-roofed houses and the other painted structures, the waterway, the volcanic looking range of hills in the distance, and the scale of the medium-rise buildings that look to me to be indicators of a large urban area. After scouring the Icelandic coastline using Google Earth and even venturing off to Norway’s shipbuilding cities, I just cannot find the precise locale. Please don’t tell me it’s New Zealand or Chile! I would have searched there but the endless miles of oceanfront property would have taken me until next Independence Day to explore!

One curious thing I discovered, though, was a Phallological Museum in Reykjavik. It appears neutral and antiseptic, but it’s quite creepy and disturbing, even for a phallophile such as myself!

As a phallophilic blog, the Daily Dish back in the day had a short thread on the Phallological Museum: “A Well Hung Museum.” Enjoy exploring it on your own, pervs, because the only picture you’re gonna get here is this one:

A sleuth in NYC also goes with Reykjavik:

I was going to guess Singapore last week, but I just couldn’t figure out the precise location. I think this week I’m pretty close: Hotel Kriunes, in the Árbær district of Reykjavik. I feel good that I have the right neighborhood. I went there with my family pre-Covid. The turf roof house was the “tell.”

Thanks for doing this contest, Chris. I wake up in the middle of the night each Friday/Sat a.m. to check to see the location.

Ha, a night owl like myself. My intent is for Dish readers to wake up on Saturday morning to read the results over coffee, but I appreciate the eagerness. Another guess:

Seydisfjordur, Iceland? I stopped there for a night on a road trip around the country. Beautiful place! I’m not sure if this is right, but this is a time where my guess is more educated than usual.

Giuseppe cycles through his thought process:

“I bet it’s in Iceland!”, I thought. It wasn’t. “Then it must be in Norway!” It wasn’t in Norway either. “Oh. Could that possibly be Scotland? Doesn’t really look like the UK, though.” It wasn’t the UK, indeed. “So. Where the hell is this place? There is nothing left...” And then I slapped my forehead.

Next up is Chini, who finally found his Achilles Heel — at least when it comes to his weekly aerial shot: