"Stop that Jeepney"

Ali and I had a very "Silly American" moment the other day. Unfortunately, I'm afraid this story is going to be one of those "I guess you had to be there" kind of stories, but I start laughing everything I think about it, so I hope words can do it some sort of justice, but to really appreciate it, you probably had to be there.

It's Monday at 5pm and Ali and I are about to head home from work. We decide to take a jeepney back towards where we live and while I hadn't done this yet, Ali had, so I let her take the lead. After walking a few blocks (with everyone staring at the two white girls since we are (1) White, (2) Female and (3) dressed in our work clothes), we reached the corner where we wanted to hop on a jeepney. After letting a few pass, we saw one that would work for where we were trying to go. It was a four lane road (2 lanes each way) and the jeepney was travelling in the middle lane. But at that particular moment, the traffic was backed up quite a bit, so that jeepney was stopped. When the first lane (nearest us on the side of the road) was clear, we decided to go for it. We ran across the street to the jeepney stopped in the middle of the road. As I was literally about to get on the jeepney, the traffic started moving again and our jeepney drove away leaving us in the middle of the street. So, like any normal person would, Ali yelled "Stop that Jeepney" and we started chasing it down the street. Once we realized we weren't going to catch it, we became very aware of the fact that we were standing in the middle of a very crowded road with traffic headed straight at us! So we ran BACK OFF the road to where we had originally been standing laughing uncontrollably. I'm sure we must have been quite the sight. We decided to only get on jeepneys that were actually stopped at the side of the road. Surprisingly, that makes life a lot easier!