We drove a further 500km yesterday to Cologne and back to meet up with my great friend who drove down from Brussels. We walked around the town together with her growing family and finally took shelter from menacing German wind and rain in the Nespresso boutique (where else?). Ayo decided it was time for number one of his two daily blowouts, which was a better decision than to let it leak all over the carseat. So, I happily proceeded to the WC with a change of clothes, diaper, wipes and folded changing pad. Sure enough and like in many other places on the old continent, the pad came in handy as there was no changing station to be found. I laid him on the pad on the toilet floor at which time he of course needed to feel the German marble. At this age (4 months today!), his hands are more often found in his mouth than outside of it, so I tried to hold his hands together, balance his legs with a knee and wipe a soupy butt with the other hand. I don’t know if you can picture it but by the time one baby leg falls back into his poop or he wiggles away, you realize it would be way cleaner to change him in the back of your car like so:.

We had a fine time with our friends going from the Hard Rock Café (I can only do so many Kartoffel, Sauerkraut and Schnitzel dishes in a row), to the Dom, to an Eisdiele (ice cream café) via that Nespresso store. Daily blowout number two arrived on our way home at a rest stop near Wiesbaden. Tall Mountain offered to change Ayo whilst I went to the restroom. After finding out that they were going to charge me 70 euro cents to tinkle, I realized that I could just ask for the key to the disabled restroom for free, which had a baby changing station inside. Bingo! I ran back to the car: “just kidding, I’ll change him” and might or might not have used Ayo as my ticket to tinkle for free. The petrol station owner looked at me and my half dressed baby after I politely asked for the key to the baby bathroom and said: “well, how do I know you won’t steal the key? you have to leave money here.” I had no cash on me and told him just that, so he went on to serve the next customer. Knowing that the customer is never king, I offered to give him anything on my body: “what do you want from me? wipes? a changing pad maybe?” And this is the kicker: he hijacked my changing pad: “sure, give me your changing pad”. So, after bartering my body and prized baby possessions, Ayo and I both got to go to the clean WC, which thankfully did have a changing station. Ayo might get some exotic disease from all the other babies who changed there but I didn’t have to change him on the ground. Beggars can’t be choosers!

PS: For irreparable poop damage on the go, there is always the sink solution:

Prohibited in Switzerland though: