Stellai’s blog May 2015: Efteling

Dear readers,

It is a fact of life that a lot of things in this world are exclusively designed for giant human shaped dolls. Even though there are indeed a lot of them, it is mainly their impressive size that makes them outstanding, for it is a commonly known fact that in numbers they are incredibly outnumbered by many other types of dolls. A small part of this is also human shaped, but the majority is usually addressed to as ‘animal dolls’. The difference between the human shaped dolls and animal dolls is in their intelligence. Though it must be said that there are many exceptions to this rule. For instance: from personal experience in this I can tell that Hand has more intelligence in her little finger than the complete bunch of Barbie dolls, that live in the box under the bed, have in their heads. Even our guinee pig dolls seem to have more intelligence than that bunch of mindless tattlesnakes whose sole purpose in life seems to be gossiping and only concern themselves with what and what not to wear. The fact that the heads of Barbie dolls is completely hollow on the inside may be a simple explanation for this lack of intelligence, for it is commonly known that intelligence in human shaped dolls is concentrated in the head. Filling their heads with sand might be a solution, thought it may make them a bit top-heavy. Which, on the other hand might be handy when I should decide to dump them in the fish doll pool of our neighbours.

Whereas this is an easy to be solved problem, I find it more and more disturbing to experience that many MB dolls consider themselves to be the only really intelligent type of dolls on this planet. Clearly this is not true. Therefore it was with great pleasure to see a genuine cooperation of doll types when we, that is the intelligent part of the human shaped doll part of our family, went to visit the worlds finest theme park: ‘Efteling’. Obviously not the Barbie bunch did not come too. They thought .... thought? This is not completely the right word.... They felt it more important to spend their day painting, repainting, re-repainting and re-re-repainting... their toenails.

Though it must be said that the majority of the visitors of ‘Efteling’ is giant MB doll type, the Efteling staff is much more versatile. They have a surprisingly big amount of hard skin dolls working for them, but also some silicon dolls, several animal dolls, a few super giants and even a talking silicon tree, specialized in telling stories to kid shaped MB doll visitors. Of course Efteling also employs several MB dolls, but to my big surprise the majority of those dolls was employed in the less prominent jobs like shop and park assistants and operators of the parks attractions or cleaning. Even Little giant Red Riding Hood was performed not by an MB doll, but a lovely and beautiful little giant hard skin doll.

I was told that this dividing of tasks was done because the work in a theme park attraction is very repetitive. Like everything in this theme park this shows clear thinking, because despite the fact that MB dolls are standard equipped with a basic self-maintaining system, the weak physiology of MB dolls makes them more vulnerable to RSI and and therefore prone to costly repairs.

Like it should be, the park offers entertainment to a great variety of dolls. Though it must be said that even though several animal dolls are working in the park, the access is prohibited to pet dolls. Also all of the roller coasters are restricted to dolls with a minimum length of 120 cm. This was a bit of a disappointment. So, I decided to pull some female strings on Koen to sneak me in ;)

Ever been in a roller coaster? It is awesome! Unfortunately I only went once. Koen did not want to go a second time. He said that the roller coaster tossed and shakes so hard that all the food he had inside him almost came out. And apparently this is a problem. I think that it is bit strange, because personally I see only benefits for food coming out. What is the function of food anyway, other than fulfilling this strange urge of MB dolls to expand themselves?

Anyway, apart from this little disappointment I had a fantastic day there. So if you should ever consider to visit a theme park, then Efteling (in Kaatsheuvel, the Netherlands) is definitely worth a buck when you are normal size, or your bucket full of bucks when you are giant size doll. ( For some reason they have different prices for giants. I know, that sucks! But it is still worth it. I guarantee!)

The images below are animations, so please wait until they cycle through the scene

Above you can see me in the famous Fatamorgana attraction. The boat you sit in floats through several scenes. The dolls that are acting are amongst the world's finest. Some of them have to show horrible pain in their face expression. But also these dolls are very proud to be part of this attraction. It is said that even after work they still keep that pain expression on their faces. Now, that is commitment!

I guess this is one of the very few attractions that I did not do. Because there was a lot of water involved Koen did not allow me to participate because there was too much risk of damage to the powder color layer of my skin. But it was fun to watch him getting soaking wet!

As mentioned there was this rule about minimum length for rollercoasters, but... rules are there to be broken, aren’t they? ;). Because the newest rollercoaster will not open until summer, we went for a ride with the old ‘Python’. 2 Looping, 2 spinning, some tossing and shaking, funny, but nothing special. I still don’t understand why Koen turned green after riding it and why we could not go a second time. Hey Koen! If you do not want that food to come out, then just keep your mouth shut! How hard can that be!! Party pooper!

The fairytale forest. It is huge! Here you can see probably the biggest amount of acting dolls worldwide, performing non-stop their repetitive moves. Several of them performing acts that you simply will not believe. There is even a donkey doll whose act is pooping gold coins for you if you feed him your old coins. Amazing!!

Ok folks, friends and fans ;) That is all for now. I am not going to reveal this time my subject of next month’s blog, simply because I do not know what it is going to be. There is an Art doll exposition event that I have visited and that i very much like to write you about, but Koen’s photo work.... Well you understand. Fortunately my boss finally has decided to give Koen some proper photo instruction. He has sacrificed his Jesus-going-to-heaven-day especially for this. (Thank you boss, you are the best!!) And if this would lead to any result, then I might consider to change my blog subject.

Thank you all for reading and don’t forget to drop a line below ;)

Xo,

Stellai

If you missed my previous report, then you can use this link to see it: /drupal/node/2067 Stellai’s blog April 2015, Koen’s birthday).

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