that time we thought we were getting kidnapped in Paris...

When I was 19 I started planning my very first European trip with my husband (boyfriend at the time). I had no experience in the matter and had never been to Europe but I didn’t care — I was bound and determined to travel dammit! 10 months later we ventured on our trip!

When we landed in Paris it was late (after 11 pm) and, even though our Airbnb host gave us the best instructions on how to use the metro, we couldn’t figure it out for the life of us (I’d like the record to state that we feel incredibly dumb about it now, the metro is incredibly EASY to use). The airport wifi wasn’t working (for my phone at least) so I couldn’t call an Uber or Lyft and we were left to try to figure it out. A taxi driver approached us and told us he would drive us to our destination for 60€, we respectfully declined (no way we were paying 60€ for a ride). We started exploring the airport, looking for a visitor center or someone who spoke English to maybe help us out, and had no luck.

We found a sign that said something along the lines of “only 40€ to go anywhere in Paris" so we agreed the best option was to just take a taxi. AGAIN — we were approached by the taxi driver we turned down, Dylan pointed to the sign and the taxi driver annoyingly agreed. In a literal RUSH (from standing in the airport to leaving in the taxi was probably less than a minute), we were brought to the taxi, shoved inside, and 3 other people got in the taxi as we were taking off, the driver and a man in the front seat and a woman and her baby in the seat next to us. Immediately we looked at each other confused and a little freaked out. Nobody asked us to rideshare. Is this normal for Paris? I don’t remember reading anything about situations like this. We asked some questions but nobody acknowledged us, they only spoke to each other in French (spoiler alert, we don’t speak French). Dylan was watching us on an offline map we downloaded before we left and we were heading nowhere near our destination.

Have you ever seen Taken? The entire movie was flashing through my head at this point <insert the laughing emoji here>, I was panicking and I could tell Dylan was also nervous (which in turn made me even more nervous). The woman seated next to us didn’t say much and she also looked nervous (or maybe that was all in my head). Her baby started to fuss and it reached for Dylan’s arm when she hit it. I’m not sure why, but seeing her hit a baby put me even more on edge. What could we do? If we talked to each other the taxi driver would for sure understand what we were saying. Do I open the door and just tuck and roll? What’s the plan? Looking back now this story is hilarious because really? We really thought WE were being kidnapped. Haha.

Finally, the taxi makes a stop on what looked to be a residential street and the man in the front was out of the car before Dylan and I could even make eye contact. He opened the trunk, grabbed some items, and opened the backseat door by the woman to escort her out. Turns out — they were a family. Afterwards, the taxi driver took us to our destination and everything worked out just fine. Is it normal to rideshare in Paris? I still don’t know, but that’s the story about that time we thought we were being kidnapped in Paris. Thankfully, we were freaking out for no reason and this made for a funny story about our very first experience traveling abroad.