Nineteen-year-old Max Vredenburgh of Massachusetts just received a reply to the message he put inside a bottle nearly a decade ago.

“When I first read his letter, my heart, my stomach just dropped. I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ … This is insane,” the Suffolk University sophomore effused to CBS Boston. At ten, Vredenburgh threw a simple letter into the ocean from a Rockport beach:

Hello my name is Max. Whoever is reading this letter please write back. … I’ll tell you a little bit about myself. I’m 10 years old, I like apples, I like the beach, my favorite colors blue, I like animals, I like cars, and I like outer space. Please write back. Sincerely, Max Vredenburgh

Nearly a decade later, his parents received a reply. It seems the bottle had bobbed its way to southern France, where it was recovered by a person identified only as “G. Dubois,” and an address.

On August 21, 2010 I threw a message in a bottle into the ocean from a beach in Rockport, MA. On October 10, 2019 that letter was found on the beach in France. I am mind blown. 9 years. pic.twitter.com/Af2tEwoQtq — māx (@VredenburghMax) November 8, 2019

“I didn’t even think it would make it there and if it did make it there, I didn’t think that somebody would actually write a letter back,” Vredenburgh said.

He knows the next step: To find out who found the bottle and took the time to write back to a hopeful little boy who likes outer space and animals, he just needs to return the favor. “It’s the human connection and, for me, it hit me on an emotional level because I reflected on myself and my past,” Vredenburgh said. “I think, for other people, it might be doing the same.”

About 3,400 miles away, someone is waiting for an answer.