Dear Host Family, Thank you so much for hosting me for a whole year! You are really making my dreams come true. This experience is very important to me. During this year, I hope to learn as much as possible about you and your culture, how to relate to new people in a new environment and to build strong relationships. But first of all, I would like to get to know you well and build a strong bond, share memories and experiences together that will stay with us forever. As I said, I’m very curious about you, your culture and your lifestyle and I hope you’ll be interested to get to know me too: I would be more than happy to tell you how we spend Easter, Christmas, summer holidays, other festivities and to discover all about yours too! I also believe that this year will help me to develop more autonomy and self-confidence, learn how to manage things on my own, mature and grow a lot, reflect on myself and understand certain sides of my personality better, improve and work on my flaws and strengthen my qualities. I think I’m a friendly, fun, generous and organized person and my friends say that I always know how to cheer them up as I’m an easy going person who can make them feel listened and understood. I also really love jokes so I always try to make people laugh. I love music and I listen to it whenever I can! I listen to all the music genres, from pop to rock to classical, and I’m always interested in discovering new songs and artists. I also enjoy reading, in particular fantasy, romance, psychological and coming-of-age novels. My current reading is “The duke and I” of the “Bridgerton” series. What about you? Do you like reading? What are you reading at the moment? Then I really like watching movies and TV series, and at the moment I’m watching them in English to improve my understanding of the language before leaving Italy. I live in a city in the northern Italy with my small family: my mother Antonia, is a pastry chef and my father, Alessandro, is a business consultant. I have a very strong relationship with them and I really hope I will have the same with you. They give me a lot of affection, they always listen and support me. I love them so much and I’m sure I’ll miss them! We don’t have any animals but I’ve dreamt of having a dog or a cat since I was a child. I’m still trying to persuade my parents for this and I hope that, one day, I’ll have a pet because I think they are really good friends! My biggest passion is dance. This discipline has always fascinated me since I was a child, when I was always dancing around the house and doing little “shows” in front of my parents. At 13 I started practicing hip-hop dance and now I’m doing it at a competitive level (which includes attending competitions, shows and exhibitions). Practicing it every day takes up a lot of my time but I work hard to manage and combine studying and dancing. Although it’s a big commitment, I would never give it up, because it makes me the happiest! It’s a way for me to let steam off, express my feelings and be one hundred percent myself. It also helps me to be more organized and to develop my memory more. It is as if it completes me, in a way. I’m learning to cook more dishes with my mother, especially desserts because of her profession, and I’ve discovered that cooking fascinates me so much! What about you? Do you like cooking? What do you think about cooking some dishes together? I also love to travel and one of my goals is to visit as many places around the world as I can. I love seeing different landscapes, meeting new people of different nationalities, learning about new cultures, trying new foods and having new experiences. This year, for example, I’ve been to the US with my parents for the first time and I completely fell in love with it. I’m so excited and really can’t wait to arrive in the US for my exchange year and meet you. I’d like you to be able to trust me, consider me part of your family and for me to find a new home away from Italy. Thank you so much for reading my letter, see you soon! Love, Greta