| Hey from Hamburg, Germany! My name is Julia but everyone calls me Juli. I am currently 14 years old but will be 15 when starting the journey in summer. My family has always been supportive towards the idea of attending a high school semester in the United States. My family, that is my mother Antje (Anni) and my father Florian as well as my younger sister Luisa who is now 11 years old. My parents are both as excited as I am about this exchange program, though my little sister Luisa told me she will really miss me since she won’t see me every day as usual. Both my parents are from Germany and in the timeframe of 2008 till 2011 my dad had the opportunity to work as an expat in the United States for three years. My mom joined him and during that time in 2009 I was actually born in the United States, in Richmond Virginia. When I was 2.5 years old we moved back to Germany and my sister was born. My mom always tells me how funny it was that even if we spoke German at home, I soaked up the English language everywhere and was able to switch the language depending on to whom I was talking to. During our vacations in the last years we visited the United States several times and every time I’m falling more in love with this country! That’s why my goal is to move back to the US sometime after graduation. I would describe myself as a kind, funny, open-minded and confident person. In my everyday life I enjoy the hobbies of bouldering, going to the gym, playing the piano, traditional dancing, theater, reading and fashion. I boulder since 5 years which is a kind of climbing but without a safety leash and you climb up to a maximum height of four to five meters (13 – 16 feet height). Since a few months I also enjoy joining my dad at the gym, lifting weights and mixing it with some Pilates. I am also very passionate about reading, most of my books are written in Englisch and are either exciting novels or about human behavior. But my absolute passion is standing on the stage. Since four years now I attend our local amateur dramatics group. Every year we are performing a winter-story performance which everyone in town loves, especially the little kids. For example in 2022 we showed the performance of “the frog king” where I was lucky to represent one of the leading role, the princess. Now in January I stared a traditional dancing class with some of my friends which takes about three months and at the end we show our learned dances, like Cha-Cha-Cha or Waltz, to our parents at a big dance ball which I am very excited about. In my hometown school I enjoy the classes of Biology, English language and WiPo (Economy and Politics) and DSP (theater classes) the most. Besides all this I also love to just spend time with my friends or spend quality time with my family when we are travelling during vacations. Several times we have visited Florida and Texas during spring vacations and I really fell in love with the US. Last year we had a very exciting year of travel as we first travelled to Thailand in spring, in summertime we visited several places in Italy and in autumn we flew to the Spanish Island Mallorca. I love to collect memories with my family during these trips. For my planned 5 month exchange to the US I would love to experience the American way of life and also learn more about the US lifestyle and culture. Hopefully you can show me how life and society is different in the US compared to Germany. I am very excited to make new friends, learn new hobbies or experience new activities in school and just be a part of it all. My hopes are, that I will grow a real part of your family during my stay. For me it is a matter of course to do chores around the house or help to take care of your kids when you need me. I also would love the bring some of my coulture into your house, with stories and pictures from Germany or maybe by baking something traditionally. Sending warmest greetings from Germany! Julia |
LETTER FROM Julia
