9500 Kilometers - (4) Above the Clouds

All good. I picked him up on the other side of the X-ray, and now we stood in front of four huge display boards. From top to bottom, I scanned every line until I found flight LH2006 to Rio de Janeiro at 13:11 German time from Gate 5, just as it said on my ticket.

Suddenly, I realized I hadn’t even told Luna that I was actually coming to visit her. In all the excitement, I had completely forgotten the most important thing. I quickly sent her a picture of the boarding pass and asked if she could pick me up. I couldn’t wait for a reply anymore, boarding had already started.

We were warmly greeted, and the flight attendants had to smile in surprise when they saw the rather large teddy bear in my arms. I got lucky, and the seat to my right remained empty. So, just before takeoff, I took the teddy out of the overhead compartment again, placed him on the empty seat beside me, straightened his bow, and fastened his seatbelt. Safety first.

As the plane began to roll, I put an arm around his shoulder to calm him down, or actually to calm myself down. The surroundings rushed by faster and faster, and finally, we took off. Now, there was really no turning back. We were heading straight to South America at over 850 km/h.

Every now and then, I dozed off for a while, and later I turned my attention to the screen in the seatback in front of me. I discovered that I could watch an episode of Outer Banks, Luna’s favorite show. We had already watched the first four seasons together, if you could even call it “together.” But in the next nine days, we could do everything together. So much to catch up on, things we hadn’t been able to do in five years of friendship because of the distance. The thought alone almost took my breath away.

Suddenly, the screen went black and the sound stopped. I fully opened the window shade and was greeted by a breathtaking view of the entire Copacabana beach. Wow, we were on our final approach. I looked to the right and said excitedly, “Teddy, we’re here!” Maybe a little too loud, but hey—we had finally arrived.