Dear host family, My name is Carla. Since being a little kid I always dreamt of a student exchange. My exchange would last six months (fall semster). At home I live with my mom and my dad, I am an only child, in a house, one hour away of the city „Düsseldorf“. My mom works as a teacher and my dad works as a professor. We are a very funny family. Basically, I like going to school because I get to see my friends. I just finished the 9th grade and next year hopefully the 10th grade. I especially like french and social sciences. In school, I take part at two voluntarily projects. The first one is called „Paten“ where older students are helping a young class at our school. We play games or help them in school. The other project is more an organisation called „courage“. We are a big group of students and offer different activities. I help in the offer „Lesenachmittag“ where kids from elementary school come and we read books together, typically three or four hours. It’s always fun. In my free time, I play tennis two times a week and once a week I dance hip hop in a class. I really enjoy my sports. Besides my hobbies, I spend a lot of time with my friends, on warm days we spend a lot of time outside. I would describe myself as a very extroverted person and I laugh very often. I am very open and like to explore. One thing I am afraid of are animals, especially dogs. I would like to visit America because it always inspired and fascinated me. So for me it was pretty clear to travel there one day but when the opportunity came to make an exchange, it was so obvious that I want to go to America. The whole nature is great and I am so excited to learn all the different cultures. I am looking forward to the high school (experience) but also to the things I will learn outside of school, maybe from you. As I said I am an only child so for me the experience to have a „sibling“ is also so exciting. Overall, I am a very curious person and would love to get to know you, your country, your way of life. On top of that I am really curious about you, about the American way of life and about all the impressions of another family and country. Finally, I would like to thank you for being so kind and for agreeing that a stranger (yet) can live with you and that you make a half-year abroad possible at all. All the best from Germany and warm greetings Carla