Dear Host family,
How to start a letter to people you don’t even know. First of all I want to thank you for considering hosting me. It’s very nice of you that you think about giving me the opportunity to spend five month abroad. In this letter I want to introduce myself, my family, my life and my school, so that you can decide if you want to be a hostfamily for me.
My name is Lea and I’m a 15-years-old girl from Germany, but when I will come to the USA I will be 16. I live with my family in a house with a little garden in Munich, a city with about 1.3 million inhabitants in Bavaria in the south of Germany.
My famiy consists of my parents and my younger brother, Lorin, who is 13 years old. He is a sportiv person, plays soccer in a team, but also likes playing the drums and the guitar. He attends the 7th grade. We have a good relationship and can have fun together, also if we sometimes argue. My parents are really great persons and I’m very grateful, that they give me the posibility to spend a time in the USA. In this decision they support me and help me, wherever they can. My mother is 49 years old and works as a medecin. My father is 50 and works as a medecin, too. Our relationship is also a very good one and I can talk with them about every problem I have. We try to spend our meals together and we often travel in Germany or also in foreign countries during our holidays with the whole family.
Perhaps you ask youself, why I want to come to your country. The main reason is that I’m interested and fascinated of your country and that I that I want to feel the “american way of life”. I don’t only want to see your country as a traveler, but as a member of your daily life. I’m looking forward to making experiences for my life, developping international friendships and I hope to become more self-confident and independent. Another reason is also that English is the first World Language and where is it better to learn it than in a native-speeking country and family? But of course, I’m a little bit nervous wether all will work. All in all I’m very interested in other cultures, so I visited England last year with a friend and lived in a hostfamily there, and I had the posibilty to see a little bit of the Polish culture, when I visited my Polish exchange student Anna last year. In spring this year I will travel to Paris and live in a French host family for one week, therefor my exchange student will live at mine a short time later.
But now I want to go on with myself. My friends call me a helpful, social, agreeable, reliable, and straightforward person. If I should characterize myself I would say that I’m a open-minded, intersted, and honest girl, who loves laughing and having fun, but sometimes needs to talk about serious things. Unfortunately I’m not that sociable as I wished, but if I got to know people and I can talk a lot and honestly with them. Sometimes I have a little problems with organizing my dates, but all in all I’m very responsible.
In my freetime I love dancing. I dance three times a weekin two different dance-clubs. The style is a mixture of hip hop, jazz and modern dance. Of course, this is sometimes very hard, because we also have competions, but the most important point is, to have fun. I also play instruments, in the past I played the piano, but I’ve now learned the clarinette for one year. I also play in an orchestra of wind instruments and in the orchestra of my school. Other hobbies are reading ( all kinds, for example Harry Potter, at the moment the Lord of the Ring, but also lovestories, reality or historical books), listening to music (also different kinds, for example rock, reggae, r&b) and meeting my friends.
My friends are wonderful and honest persons I can totally trust and it’s very important for me to spend much time together. I have three best friends, one of them, S., I know now for almost 9 years is very similar to me, so we dance together, like the same movies and listen to the same music. The other two, L. and D., go in my class. With Lea it’s always fun going to concerts or watching movies. With Diana I can really have fun, too, for example I went with her to the other dance-club, but she’s also a great listener, so I like talking with her.
The last thing I often do in the evening or at the weekends is babysitting. I love young children and I think I’m good at cooperating with them. My babysitting-children are between one and ten, so I have experiences with children of every age.
My next part of this letter is my school. I go to the 10th grade in a “Gymnasium”, which is the highest schoolform, you can visit in Germany. My school day starts at 8 o’clock am and normally finishs at 1 o’ clock pm. Only one day a week I have to stay two hours longer, because we have sports in the afternoon. My favourit subjects are English, Social Studies and German. I also learn French at school, but I prefer English. I think English is an amazing language and I want to reduce my mistakes.
At school I’ a “Tutorin” that’s a voluntary work and means that pupils of the 9th or 10th grade help the younger pupils of the 5th and 6th grade. We are there for helping them if they have problems with their teachers or in class. About once a month we spend the afternoon together with one class and do something they want to do, for example going to the cinema, having a christmasparty or doing handicrafts. I enjoy this work, because when I was in the 5th grade I really liked doing something with my class, so now I can help them and I also do like these pupils.
I don’t have exact plans for my future, but after my graduation I first want to spend a year abroad again and either do a voluntary work in a country of the third world as in Africa or South America or spend the year as an au-apair. Later in my opinion I’d like to study something, where I can work together with children or perhaps even disabled children.
One last important thing is, that I don’t eat met, sausage or poultry, but I eat fish and I don’t mind if you eat it and it’s no problem for me to prepare something for my own or only leave the meat out and eat the rest. Of course, I don’t expect you to cook extra for me. So I hope this won’t be a problem.
I hope you could gain a good expression of my person and my life and it would be amazing if you decide to host me. You will show me your culture and life and I will tell you about the German culture. Thank you again for reading my letter, I’m looking forward to getting to know you and I’m sure I will come back to Germany with new experiences and a new family.
Yours sincerely
Lea
freu mich auf korekturen und komentare, ich weiß er ist relativ lang…
