Eating in a toilet
This weekend, my little tribe and I went to Hamburg for our first mini vacation together. Traveling with a 5-month-old baby is not easy, but we managed quite well. Vueling lost our suitcase and the Airbnb flat we rented had no gas (no hot water or heating). But it was fine in the end. The first thing was solved by going to Zara and buying some clothes for me and little Nora, the second one by moving to a hotel.
The first few hours were terrible because we were forced to go emergency shopping straight from the airport; my baby was so hungry that I asked one of the ladies in Zara Kids if they had a nursing area or a place to go. Even though we were in the kids area, they didn’t have any, but she allowed me to go to the fitting room. It was super sad sitting there with all these mirrors where I could see my exhausted face repeated by 5, but I couldn’t ask for more in that situation.
After the chaos, we went to a very fancy hotel, where everything worked with electronic chips and the elevator had black light. We had a really nice stay. However, here we had the icing on the cake that kinda destroyed our experience in this place.
It was the last day, we were checking out, and as I was looking at the large amount of couches, puffs and resting areas they had, I asked the reception lady where I could feed my baby. She asked a guy — in German — and her answer was:
— Yeah, you can go to the toilet.
— What? The toilet?
The lady swallowed. I bet my face was scary.
— Uh… Yes, but you can use the handicapped one to have more space.
Are you kidding me? What’s the relation between pooping, peeing, throwing up and breastfeeding? Would you send one of your posh guests to eat breakfast in the toilet? “Yeah, the buffet starts at 7 until 10 in the handicapped toilet. If you don’t mind the lack of space you can go to the normal one 24/7.”
She quickly reacted to my face and said, “You can ask in the restaurant, but I don’t know what’s their policy in these regards”. What? you don’t know the policy of EATING in a restaurant? I looked at their posh restaurant, and their posh waitress and their posh black light in the elevators and I was so upset that we didn’t even bother to ask them.
It was insane, but it wasn’t the first time this had happened to me in Germany. At the Hamburger Kunsthalle museum, we had the chance to see an amazing exhibition: “Franz Ludwig Catel, Images of Italy in the Romantic period” Where one in every four pictures depicted a breastfeeding woman: on a horse, sitting with her tribe, dancing in the woods… So I felt safe when Nora started moaning and I decided to sit in a quiet corner and feed her. A women came running to me saying — “Please come, please come” in her rudimentary English. I followed her, thinking that she would lead me to a comfy area instead of a little corner with a crappy sofa. To my surprise, she sent me to a mini room in the door next to the toilets that had a changing mat, a chair, and a trash bin. — “Here”. She said.
The room stank, but as she didn’t speak much English I couldn’t really argue with her.
Erschienen in “Spiegel” Nr. 01
History repeated itself in the Deichtorhallen Hamburg Museum. We were at the House of Photography, visiting an exhibit with the best of magazines, newspapers and internet, photography, advertising, online and editorial design. In fact we were visting the part where all the photo documentaries–the truth–were pinned on the wall. From sexual practises, to people beaten by the police, to war victims. But breastfeeding was too much. In this case the room didn’t even had a chair, so I had to sit on the toilet. It never happened to me before. Saddest. Experience. Ever.
The only weird experience I’ve had in Spain regarding breastfeeding was in the street, when a crazy old woman complained to me and my super pregnant friend, because we sat in front of her little shop to do “something disgusting”. I really thought it was an exception, and the lady was a loony: she even put a sign on the street the day after, to prevent nasty women like me doing the same again.
After that, it never happened to me again in Spain. I thought Germany was an advanced country so I wasn’t prepared for all this! What can I say? I’m pissed, and mad, and sad, and I hope soon we can feed our babies like in the Romantic Period, and everyone can carry on with their normal lives or even have fun (omg!) while a baby eats–not in a toilet.
