Dear future host family In the USA,

First, I want to thank you for reading my letter and making the effort to welcome an exchange student like me to your family for a half year.

Hi, my name is Chiara!

I’ve been dreaming of doing an exchange year or semester since I was 8 years old and now, I’m more than happy to finally fulfill my childhood dream.

I’m currently 15 years old and live in Germany with my parents in a family of three.

Together with my parents, I live in a nice house with a big garden and some animals in a beautiful village.

My dad works as a molecular biologist and often works the whole day, but he still manages to make time for our family. He helps me with my homework and everything school related.

My mom is a dentist. She is at home a lot to take care of me and our animals, which I really appreciate. I love decorating our house together with her before Christmas, Easter or Halloween.

Our family spends a lot of time together. What I really love is that we travel as often as possible in my school vacations. We like exploring new countries and continents, which is probably why I’ve always wanted to live in another country. We also do many day trips to lakes, the sea, museums or neighborhood villages, but we also enjoy spending time together at home or watching movies together.

In my free time I enjoy doing sportive activities like horseback riding, jumping on the trampoline or my main hobby, which is All-star cheerleading. I practice three times a week with my team, which is quite important to me and in December, we even won the national championship.

One of the most important parts of my life are my friends. I often go shopping or to the city with them. With my friends at cheerleading, I like practicing together in my garden or talking about the latest news. In winter, I love going to the Christmas market with them or doing movie nights. If I don’t have enough time to see them in person, I love to do face – time calls with them. One of my other interests is cooking and baking. My favorite dish to cook is steak with different types of sauce and burgers. Before Christmas, I love baking cookies or gingerbread houses.

I have a positive but still realistic and not naive mindset, which helps me to stay calm in hard situations and search for answers. I am open-minded and not scared of new experiences or challenges. This will help me in the USA. My friends say that I’m a funny person that smiles a lot.

On the other hand, I’m a bit of a perfectionist sometimes and when I look forward to exciting occasions, I can be a little bit impatient. But I’ll work on that until I come to the US.

But why do I even want to do my exchange semester?

I want to experience a typical American high school, including sideline cheerleading, driving in a yellow school bus and choosing subjects we don’t have in Germany, shopping in one of those huge supermarkets, doing little trips on the weekends, celebrating traditions like Thanksgiving and living in a loving American family.

I can’t wait to fly to the US and meet my host family, with which I hope to make many unforgettable memories. Thank you for making the effort to read my letter and thinking about hosting me in your family.

Best wishes,

Chiara