WITWIS 2013 - Round 2
Clue:
Stabguy is driving to BROUTED GRUB ABET HORNER.
+100 points for any guess, even if it is wrong
+100 points for first correct answer
+100 points for correct answer
+100 points for coming up with an alternative clue that doesn't sound like gibberish.
Another clue:
Unscramble this to get the name of the city:
BROUTED GRUB ABET HORNER
The round ends May 3.
...yeah, I got that idea the first time around. Only with 21 letters, that's 51090942171709440000 possibilities.
Crap. I was so certain of my answer I didn't even double-check it with the clue.
Still, I've got a feeling that I'm close.
Damn, I thought I was clever finding "BEER GARDEN" in there and went with Munich. That's not right.
STILL looking at Lisa 
Stabguy is driving to ROTHENBURG OB DER TAUBER.
Congratulations to Gerund, Methodical, and Cheese for getting the right answer. Here are the points for this round:
phi - 100
gerund - 400
cheese - 300
methodical - 300
aurel -100
Here are the total points so far:
phi - 500
gerund - 600
cheese - 400
methodical - 400
aurel - 200
lisa - 100
how many rounds will there be?
“Force has no place where there is need of skill." Herodotus
STILL looking at Lisa
No! Not the stern-looking emoticon! Arrrgggghhhh! Noooooo!
how many rounds will there be?
No! Not the stern-looking emoticon! Arrrgggghhhh! Noooooo!
I'm merciless, aren't I?
I'd love to hear from Gerund, Methodical, and/or Cheese on how they solved this problem.
Yeah, me too.
The first clue indicated that Stabguy was driving to destination #2 and Frankfurt is relatively centralized in Germany, so I figured he wasn't leaving the country. I guessed it was an anagram, although for what I wasn't sure. As I commented above, the first thing I found was "BEER GARDEN" in the letters used, so I guessed Munich. When clue #3 indicated it was the name of the city, I use Wiki for a list of German cities. Despite there being 21 letters in the city's name, many were repeats, so I could eliminate most of the cities listed that didn't start with the letters used. Browsing through the shorter list now, most town names could be eliminated at a glance because they either were too short or had an A or S in them. Eventually I stumbled upon the correct answer.
...methodical.
I do admit this was very tough. I thought each word had to be unscrambled by themselves instead of unscrambling the location as a whole. So I thought the first word was "redoubt". And when I read about military redoubts in wikipedia, I was sure that's where Stabguy went, especially with his family's military history. Of course Rothenburg looks like a nice town to visit.
I did EXACTLY the same thing as methodical, except for the beer garden thing. My first guess was THE BRANDENBURGER TOR, but that didn't add up with the letters. I didn't double-check it.
stabguy was in the market for a medieval torture device, which he needed for his "work".
After seeing what Rothenburg had to offer, he finally settled on this ducking stool.
When we arrived in Rothenburg ob der Tauber the weather was hazy. This walled city in Bavaria is known as the best preserved medieval old town in all of Europe. The Criminal Museum details how torture was central to the judicial system during medieval times, with many gruesome devices on display. Evidently the defendants were tortured right in the courtroom to elicit confessions.
Of all the cities on this trip, Rothenburg is the only one I had previously visited (although I didn't recall St. George's Fountain in the main square). There's a legend about how the mayor saved Rothenburg from an occupying army by guzzling 3 liters of beer to win a bet. The clock tower has mechanical figures that re-enact this heroic tale several times daily. Last time I missed seeing it, so this time for sure! Alas, the animatronics had broken down and the whole clock was under repair. It must be a long project because the giant tarp covering the clock tower was painted to look like the tower itself.
