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Welcome to #checkin for Sunday, July 6, 2025!


Bonsoir/Bonjour and welcome to today's #checkin. Today was the second and last day of the folkmetal festival here in Janzé in France. A couple of great bands and also very welcoming people. Today there was also a local group who did Brittonic Chansons in the Bretonic language. All the staff people were totally excited when we told them that we had come all the way from Germany to their little village to attend their festival.
A little quirk, the village is known for their quality chicken meat, and they have a statue of a chicken:

Chicken statue in Janze

So what quirky thing is your city/village known for? Can be positive or negative, for example most traffic jams in the region or some (famous) person who lived there or an unusual mascot?
For example, Paderborn is either known as Partyborn or Paderboring among the students and also sometimes known as Ampelborn (traffic light) because of the many red lights you encounter.

Greetings… Ahoj! Aloha! Bom dia! Bonjour! Bună! Ciao! G’day! Geia sas! Günaydın, صباح الخير , בוקר טוב 你好! Håfa Adai! Hi! Hei! Hello! Hallo! Hei! Hola! Howdy! Halō! Kamusta! Kia Orana! Kon’nichiwa! Mabuhay! Moi! Namaste! Ni Hao! Neih hou! Pagi! Saluton! Sawasdee! Shwmae! Γειάσας! Talofa! Terve!😄
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in reply to Christoph S

I was stumped at first. I mean we have sooo many people and things and.... but I think... The Naked Cowboy. Truly committed to the bit.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Co…

in reply to Christoph S

I LOVE that chicken statue!
Healesville is famous for it's Australian native animal sanctuary. It's one of only two places where platypuses have been successfully bred in captivity.
in reply to Christoph S

Here in Joliet, we are known for the old prison (now just a tourist attraction)... and the Blues Brothers, which was famously filmed there. Our minor league baseball team is named the Slammers and has a crow dressed in prison stripes as the mascot and logo showing the prison. I guess embracing it is the thing.
in reply to Christoph S

@Christoph SIs or has Alan Stivell been at that festival? The time I saw him was very folkmetal.
My city ( area ) is mostly known for corrupt politicians. But also GoGo music, a DC style
in reply to Christoph S

There's an animal shelter in Hatfield, takes in cats, chickens, and sheep....
in reply to Christoph S

The town I grew up in claims to serve the world's largest strawberry shortcake every year. There used to be lots of strawberry farms, now I think they are down to one or zero. Just about everybody my age who grew up in the PNW picked green beans or strawberries or worked in one of the canneries for shitty wages in the summer. Or bucked hay or positioned irrigation pipe, if they were burly.
in reply to Christoph S

It appears some folks purchase pets and animals they later don't want anymore...this shelter will take them in.
in reply to Christoph S

I love the whole concept of a folkmetal festival. Bravo! :-)
in reply to Christoph S

Quirky thing is border town; half of the town is in one province and half in another and one city council. The must visible difference is liquor sales. Alberta side has lots of liquor stores and SK has one. Not sure about cannabis stores but there are tons on the Alberta side.
in reply to Christoph S

Hmmmm --- Santa Cruz is in a war with the pretender city, huntington beaach, over the title "Surf City". Santa Cruz is mentioned in the song Surfin USA, which to me is slam dunk proof. Santa Cruz is also home to "The Lost Boys". And Alfred Hitchcock lived in the county - and the events that lead to "The Birds" actually happened here, and the inspiration for the Psycho house is here as well.

But enough about Santa Cruz...

Did you know that Petaluma, California is (or was) the Chicken Capital of the World, and also the Arm Wrestling Capital of the World?

But Castroville (not far from Santa Cruz) is the "Artichoke Center Of The World" (I don't know why it isn't the Artichoke Heart) and it had as its 1947 Artichoke Queen and unknown actress, named Norma Jean - later Marilyn Monroe (she also went to my high school in LA.)

in reply to Christoph S

A town near where we used to live had free-roaming chickens at one time, but they have disappeared as the place gets developed 🫤
in reply to Christoph S

@Cass my mother grew up in a town that straddled 2 states. It's been a huge PITA for genealogy—were they born/married/died in this state or that one?
@Cass
in reply to Christoph S

This city's official mascot is the Bear, not often in the LGBTQ style but all over the place as Buddy Bears. Friendly, colourful bears in about life size, either upright or on all fours, adorned with a local motif, kid's art, by a paid artists or embassy emblems because often the bears grace their entrance.


Other than that, an icon is the East Berlin TV tower. Not an animal, but it is ev-ery-whe-re in logos, silhouettes, and whatnot.

in reply to Christoph S

Olympia is the capital city, so it has government stuff here.
As for quirks, you can easily find out where Kurt Cobain lived when we was in the city.
Also, there is an evangenital church "Come as you are"

FWIW, those are hints to the musical lyrics that i posted in a previous checkin.

Olympia was one of the "Riot Grrl" homes

in reply to Christoph S

Santa Cruz is Sk8 City for sure, and has a much bigger claim to being Surf City than Huntington Beach ever will have. I mean Newport Beach is like right next door! (Hello Malibu and Honolulu)
Don't forget about Gilroy California, the Garlic Capitol of the World.
in reply to Christoph S

@Rod Mesa - There was some sort of soil based garlic blight in the Gilroy area, so much of the garlic growing moved elsewhere. I don't know if it has come back. There used to be a large garlic processing factory in Gilroy - and it smelled really great! A tad further south is King City, which sometimes has a wonderful onion scent from the onions grown there.

And then there is Lindsay, California - which has (or had) as a slogan - "Lindsay, Great Town, Greater Olive" (or something like that).

in reply to Christoph S

And then I believe Watsonville is Strawberry Land (not an official name). Friend lives there.
in reply to Christoph S

If you have an interest in scents related to the food industry, I suggest visiting Lewiston Idaho when the feedlots in Clarkston, across the river, are jam packed with beef cattle. You might then ask yourself "how many nice smelling flowers would it take to noticeably fend off any of that shit?", or perhaps "how many metric tons of nice smelling flowers...". Then simply wander about Lewiston, counting up that number of flowers. Possibly the most enflowered city I've ever wandered through. Actually, just getting there was a story...
in reply to Christoph S

Oh, I lived out in the country for a few years. Cattle smell delightful compared to pigs! You could always tell when the pig farm cleaned out the barns... for miles.
in reply to Joyce Donahue

@Joyce Donahue "I can smell for miles and miles, I can smell for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles..."