Three Americans Take the Train to Bandung

The title of this blog sounds like the beginning of a great joke, I am not sure what the punch line is, but all I know is that we were laughing a lot at the end of the trip.  Let me start from the beginning, Fulbright decided that the evacuees from Yogyakarta should go to Bandung, and they should take the train to get there.  Therefore, 3 Americans and all their stuff (5 backpacks, 3 suitcases, 1 Pelican case, 1 Timbuk2 bag, and 1 fanny pack) board the train.  Now, to make a long story short, we had a lot of stuff that we had to fit in a very small space.  We pushed and we shoved and we shimmied till all of our stuff was properly packed away (mostly between our chair and the chair in front of us).  Four hours later, we arrived in Bandung.  We started to get our stuff out of its hiding places, we pulled, and we yanked, and we caught 60 lb falling suitcases.  American number one takes her one suitcase and successfully gets off the train.  American number two has a suitcase that is wider than the aisle, so therefore can't roll it.  She wrestles with suitcase one while, leaves suitcase two in the aisle.  American number three (me) dressed as a turtle, decides that she is is going to help and starts pulling the next suitcase (with all her luggage on her back...see blog "Life as a Turtle" for full description).  I first get stuck at the turn to get off the train... I shimmy some and get unstuck.  Then I start going toward the exit, and the train starts moving.  I know I can jump out of a moving train, but I am looking at the ground and thinking of the extra 115lbs of luggage on me (not to mention the 65lbs of luggage I am pulling), and think, if I jump, my ankle is going to shatter.  American one and two are yelling at me to get off the train, but besides contemplating the broken ankle, I am also literally stuck.  I throw my pelican case to American one, and gather all my force and charge... free myself, jump off the moving train, and even save the suitcase.  No broken ankles, all luggage saved, and one American with a bad case of the giggle goose (I could not stop laughing).  As I am thinking about my great death defying leap... the train of course stops moving and just sits there.  I could have just waited 5 minute and would have been fine.