Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Ik schrijf het straks direct in mijn agenda.

The title means "I'll write that in my agenda right away."

When Pastor Bogue was in Lynchburg, we asked him what he remembered about living in the Netherlands.  One of the things he seemed to remember most vividly was that everyone had an agenda (that is to say, a little appointment book).  If you said "Hey, we should get some coffee sometime", they would whip out their agenda and start looking for a date.  Pastor Bogue said everybody, down to the street cleaner, always had their little agenda ready at hand.  I thought that this was a funny story.

Then, the fourth lesson in the text book we used in Dutch class turned out to be all about making appointments: "Zullen we een afspraak maken?" we learned to say.  (Shall we make an appointment?)  The next line of the dialogue is what I used for the title of this post--"I'll write that in my agenda right away."  In a later dialogue, one of the protagonists mourns that he doesn't have his agenda with him, he will have to call back later to make an appointment.  I thought it was pretty coincidental.

But, a couple of days ago, just to top it off, I got a link to a blog called "Stuff Dutch People Like."  And the second post on the blog was "Scheduling-Agenda-Appointments."  I guess if two or three witnesses prove a thing, then Dutch people really, really like their schedules.

I feel a little left out--I think I need to go find an agenda of my own.

http://stuffdutchpeoplelike.com/2011/07/29/scheduling-agenda-appointments/
This is a link to the "Stuff Dutch People Like" blog, particularly to the section on Agendas.  It is pretty entertaining and a lot of it seems pretty true.  A word of warning, though.  Although this particular entry is clean, several of the other entries (and a majority of the comments, probably) contain swearing and/or impolite jokes, so read with caution.

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