I still haven’t gotten around to posting the final part of my report about my trip to the Los Amigos Masters of the Universe convention in Neuss earlier this summer and it’s already time for the next convention.

But first of all, I’m at Galactic Journey again today, for the third time this month. This time around, I review another Ballantine Adult Fantasy book, Zothique by Clark Ashton Smith. If Ursula K. Le Guin derisively referred to Deryni Rising by Katherine Kurtz as Poughkeepsie because of its fairly plain language and low magic world, Zothique is definitely Elfland. Though I think there is room for both in fantasy.

But now  let’s get to the topic at hand. For last weekend, I headed to Toyplosion in Castrop-Rauxel in the Ruhrgebiet. Though only in its third year, Toyplosion already is one of Europe’s biggest vintage toy conventions. Unfortunately, I had to miss the first Toyplosion due to both my parents being sick, but I attended last year’s Toyplosion and enjoyed it a lot, so much that I bought a ticket for this year’s edition as soon as they went on sale.

He-Man goes Ruhrpott – again.

As with this year’s Los Amigos convention, I also booked a hotel for the night. That way, I could spare myself the stress of driving both ways in a single day and also explore the many fascinating sights the Ruhrgebiet has to offer.

Though I suspect a lot of people still have the old image of the grimy Ruhrgebiet in their minds. Cause when I told neighbours and friends that I was going to Castrop-Rauxel for the weekend, the inevitable reaction was, “Why on Earth would you go there?”, whereby “there” was often pronounced with utter disdain. I guess a lot of people still haven’t realised that the old grimy Ruhrgebiet is long gone and that the region actually is a viable tourist destination with lots of interesting sights now. Though I recall seeing a travel broshure announcing that “The Ruhrgebiet is green”, complete with photos of castles, mansions and parks, sometime in the late 1980s/early 1990s, at a time when many of mines, steelworks and other heavy industry in the Ruhrgebiet were still active. So the Ruhrgebiet has been rebranding itself as a tourist destination for more than thirty years now.

On Saturday morning, I got up at five AM. The con was set to open at nine, one hour earlier than last year. The trip would take roughly two and a half hours and I wanted to stop for breakfast along the way.

I left home at half past five, driving onto my old friend Autobahn A1. It was still dark outside – sunrise was at six twenty AM – though the sky was gradually turning from black to gray. More remarkably, the Jet gas station just before exit Groß-Mackenstedt was not just closed, but entirely dark. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it dark before.

In spite of the early hour, there was quite a bit of traffic – both trucks as well as cars and campervans. But then, the summer holidays are still ongoing in some parts of Germany. Indeed, the summer holidays in Northrhine-Westfalia, which is not only the German state with the biggest population, but also the state where Castrop-Rauxel is located, ended this very weekend, which meant additional traffic.

But even though there was more traffic than you’d expected at this early hour, I still made good time. By the time the sun came up at twenty past six, I was just passing service station Dammer Berge with its iconic bridge restaurant, which was already lit up in spite of the early hour. Though I didn’t stop this time around, because I wasn’t in the mood for overpriced soapy coffee.

A bit further down the Autobahn, I got a surprise, because I passed an exit named Rieste that I had never noticed before. Now I’m very familiar with the Autobahn A1 leg between Bremen and Osnabrück, because I’ve driven it lots of time. I know every exit, every parking lot, every service station. So how could there suddenly be an Autobahn exit I had never noticed before?

The answer is that Autobahn exit Rieste is brand-new and only opened for traffic on August 7. And come to think of it, there had been a construction zone in this area until recently, clustered around an Autobahn bridge in the process of being replaced. Driving past this spot on my way to the Los Amigos in Neuss, I did notice a paved exit ramp, but assumed it led to a newly built or expanded parking lot.

As for why Rieste, a village of 3600 people, gets its own Autobahn exit, the reason is the massive Niedersachsenpark business park next to the A1, which among other things is home to the European distribution center for Adidas and Reebok. Until now, the Niedersachsenpark could only be accessed via the neighbouring exit Neuenkirchen-Vörden, but as the business park grew, traffic increased as well until a second Autobahn exit became necessary. Coincidentally, this is also the reason that the A1 exit Groß Ippener further north exists, because there is a business park next to the Autobahn. Meanwhile, the exit Posthausen even further north on the Bremen to Hamburg leg of the A1 only exists because of the Dodenhof shopping center, one of Germany’s largest malls.

I drove onwards, past Osnabrück, across the Teutoburg Forest and through the void of nothing that is the Münsterland. The sun was already up by now, but it was still gloomy with low-hanging clouds, which did not bode well for the day. Now the Teutoburg Forest has a tendency to be gloomy – something which already plagued and doomed Publius Quinctilius Varus and his legions – but the Münsterland normally isn’t overly gloomy.

It was around half past seven, when I reached the cloverleaf junction Kamener Kreuz, where Autobahn A1 intersects with Autobahn A2. Normally, I should have changed onto Autobahn A2 here, but instead I drove on to the next exit Kamen-Zentrum. Because in the business and retail park next to the Kamener Kreuz, there is a really nice bakery café, a branch of the Dortmund based chain Bakery Grobe. I discovered it last year on the way home from the Los Amigos convention and have been stopping here whenever I’m at Kamener Kreuz ever since, because due to its proximity to the Autobahn, it makes for the perfect pitstop.

Though it was half past seven on a Saturday morning, the bakery café was already quite busy. While waiting in line, I chatted with a trucker lady who had driven all through the night and was making one last breakfast stop on her trip to Solingen. At one point, we talked about Bremerhaven (a common destination for truckers due to the harbour) and I mentioned that I got there sometimes to interpret at the courthouse. Trucker lady: “Bremerhaven has a courthouse?” – Me: “Of course. It’s an independent city.” – Trucker lady: “But that’s not near the harbour, is it?” – Me: “Not at all. The Bremerhaven courthouse isn’t close to anything of interest. You can’t even get anything to eat around there. If I want to have lunch, I have to go to the fishing port.” Note that Bremerhaven is a rather weird city, which consists of separate districts – the touristy parts along the old and new harbour, the city center with shops and the like, the fishing port, the actual modern harbours, residential neighbourhoods and a big box retail district on the edge of the city – with little connection between them. If you only ever go to one part like the modern harbours, you don’t necessarily know that the other parts exist.

Then it was my turn to order breakfast, I had a Dortmund market omelette, a latte macchiato and a glass of orange juice. He-Man approves:

Breakfast of Champions of Grayskull: He-Man and I are enjoying a Dortmund market omelette.

And here is just the Dortmund market omelette. It’s filled with cheese and tomatoes and served with a bread roll as well as some tomato and cucumber slices.

When I left Bakery Grobe, I also chanced to take a closer look at two houses on the other side of the road. They are both old, dating from the nineteenth or early twentieth century and clearly predate both the Autobahn and the retail park. I had noticed these houses before and mostly wondered why they were still standing, because it’s not a pleasant place to live, awkwardly wedged between a busy retail park and one of Germany’s busiest Autobahnen. Mostly houses that find themselves in such locations are sold and torn down sooner or later.

But this time, as I walked back to my car, I noticed one of the houses, painted a striking burgundy red, actually had a sign that read Club A1 and a large poster of a scantily clad lady. And suddenly I realised, “Crap, that’s a brothel.”

The A1 roadside brothel on Kamener Kreuz and its neighbour.

Now prostitution is legal and mostly uncontroversial in Germany and it flourishes along the Autobahnen, whether it’s in the form of campervans with red neon hearts in the windows parked on commuter parking lots or the ladies of the night cruising trucker parking lots. Sometimes, you get actual brick and mortar brothels like this one as well, though those tend to be more common in rural areas. But then, a brothel probably is the best use for a building in such an awkward location.

I drove back the few kilometers to Kamener Kreuz and changed onto Autobahn A2, passing Lünen (one of the lesser known Ruhrgebiet cities) and Dortmund. At the junction Dortmund Northwest, I changed onto Autobahn A45 and then again at intersection Castrop-Rauxel East onto Autobahn A42 for the last few kilometers.

The nine o’clock news were just starting, when I left the Autobahn at the exit Castrop-Rauxel, i.e. I had arrived just in time for the con to start.

The con venue, the Europa Hall at Forum Castrop-Rauxel, is very close to the Autobahn. I followed the signs that led towards the parking area. Last year, I parked on an elevated park deck a few hundred meters away from the Europa Hall. This year, however, the signs led me to an underground parking garage underneath Forum Castrop-Rauxel, which I’d either missed last year or it had been already full.

The parking garage was certainly convenient, but it was also terrible, because the place was incredibly dimly lit. If I was given to being afraid of parking garages (which I’m not, at least not when attending a con with thousands of people), this one would have been terrifying.

I found a place to park and went in search of a ticket machine, since the signs said I needed a ticket. However, I couldn’t find the ticket machine in the dimly lit garage. I finally spotted a young woman getting out of her car and asked, if she knew where the ticket machine was. Turns out she did know, because she was an employee at Castrop-Rauxel city hall, which just happens to be located at Forum Castrop-Rauxel as well. She offered to show me to the ticket machine.

While we were walking to the ticket machine, I asked her, if it was normal for city hall employees to work on Saturdays in Castrop-Rauxel, because our city hall is closed on Saturdays. The young woman explained that the Castrop-Rauxel city hall was closed on weekends as well, but this weekend some employees had to come in to deal with a problem with election notifications and mail-in ballots (more about that here). “Oh yes, you’re having a local election in September,” I replied, “I noticed the campaign posters.” In fact, I noticed election posters a few weeks ago on a day trip to Porta Westfalica, but initially assumed it was a special election just in Porta Westfalica and Minden, not in all of Northrhine-Westfalia. I also asked her if she at least got an overtime bonus for having to come into office on a weekend. Yes, she is getting an overtime bonus as well as a weekend bonus.

When we reached the ticket machine, I saw that the price for a day ticket was a very reasonable 3 Euros. However, when I threw my coins into the slot, I got the message. “No parking fee today”, which is even better. Honestly, considering the horrendous parking costs in Bremen and also Oldenburg, parking costs in the Ruhrgebiet have always been very reasonable in my opinion.

Having saved the parking fee, I then went in search for a way out of the parking garage, which turned out to be a staircase which led up to Forum Castrop-Rauxel and the con. But that’s a story for another post.