Hello dear host family,

thank you first of all for finding some time to read my presentation letter, I greatly appreciate it.

I’m Thomas, I’m 16 years old and I’m from Italy. I live with my mother, Gundi, she is from Latvia, my father, Luca, my older brother Alex and my cat Lipe. We love travelling, especially during summer, we have been to Spain, Germany, Thailand, England, Portugal, Greece, Croatia and Latvia. During summertime we usually go to our house on the seaside on the Adriatic Sea, it’s an old house from our grandparents. In the winter we usually go to our mountain house and stay there to ski or go for walks in the forest.

Sometimes I play tennis with my father other than my weekly tennis lessons. At the weekends sometimes we play cards or board games all together. I usually get along with my brother but sometimes we fight over nothing and after 10 minutes we talk to each other like nothing happened. I have a good relationship with my parents, they are very open and you can feel free to talk with them about everything. I love my family and also my cat!

I’m really open to change and to learn new things. I’m a kind boy, caring, altruistic and some people say I’m funny. I’m a good listener, in fact sometimes my friends call me because they need to talk to someone, I’m always in for a talk. I’m a very determined person, if there’s something I need to do I’ll get it done as soon as possible, but sometimes I’m a bit lazy. If I sit on the couch or on the bed for a second it will be hard to pull me away.

I love playing tennis, counting this year, I’ve played tennis for 5, I have tennis lessons once a week. This year I restarted going to swim once a week too. In the last 2 years I have done piano lessons but I stopped this year because I have a lot more to study than in the last years, I still have the piano in my room and sometimes I play it. When I want to relax I really enjoy watching Tv series or films.

I’m not a really good cook, but I am able to make some typical Italian dishes like Pasta al ragú, Pasta with fresh tomato sauce, pasta with pesto and my favourite, pasta carbonara. I like eating vegetables and fruit and sometimes for snack I have a fruit salad, I love grapes.

My favourite holiday is Christmas especially when we celebrate it in Latvia, most of the times during that time of the year you’ll see snow everywhere, the pine trees are so beautiful in white. For Christmas we have a dinner with typical latvian food and after that we gather around in a circle and play fun games like drawing an object looking at the sheet from the mirror. When we finish the games, before unwrapping our gifts we say what we are grateful for.

When I hang out with my friends on Friday we go eat at McDonald’s and sometimes we go to the cinema after or we go around city shops. When we don’t know what to do we go to my friend’s place and play some board games or cook something for fun.

I am used to staying away from my home for long periods during the summer. From the age of 10 every summer I go to the summer camp by the beach for two weeks, it’s organized by the Company where my mom works. Every year I meet new people and sometimes I meet people from previous years. At the summer camp, we do many interesting activities like beach volley, basketball, art classes, sculpture lessons with clay, open sea sailing, boat lessons and even S.U.P which is a sport practiced on a board with a paddle.

Two years ago I went on a study trip in London for two weeks. It was a fantastic experience, I met people from all around the world at the college, there were Greek, Spanish and French people and even from all around Italy. I made a lot of friends and visited a lot of new places like Oxford, Cambridge and Brighton which is a very nice seaside city.

I hope to gain from this experience a very good level of English, to learn from you your culture, family traditions, everyday life so different from mine. I’ve never had a doubt about this experience. I chose the US also because I’m so interested in all American holidays as Thanksgiving Day, Independence Day, Christmas and especially Halloween which is my favourite holiday. Also, all the American High School events sound so exciting. My brother who just came back from his exchange year in the US, he said it was actually like he expected it to be and I can’t wait to see it with my eyes.

I’m so grateful to you for this great opportunity and I hope I’ll feel part of your family and share great memories together.

Thank you All,

Thomas