Dear host family! First of all I would like to thank you for letting me be part of your family and for giving me the opportunity to have an unforgettable time abroad. My name is Alexandra, but you can just call me Alex. I'm from Germany. I live in a small village near Hamburg, which is great because where I live it's very quiet and there is a lot of nature, but if I want to I can take the train to Hamburg and be in a very big city within 20 minutes. Before I talk about myself in detail, I would like to tell you something about my family. I don't have any siblings, so I live with my mom (Anja) and my dad (Heiko) in a single-family home. They both work for an energy company but they do different things there. We love traveling, especially to the USA which makes me even more grateful that I can spend a whole year in such a diverse country. I don't have any pets but I would love to have a cat one day. As I said, I don't have pets but my neighbors have 2 cats, which is amazing because the cats often come to our house and visit us. Now let's talk about me. My hobbies are playing tennis and doing karate. I also like meeting my friends, reading and baking. I'm very interested in playing the piano and even though I don't take any lessons, I enjoy learning different songs on the piano to play them for my family. Until about 7 months ago I took swimming lessons for several years and I still enjoy it a lot. I would love to continue with tennis, karate and maybe also swimming when I'm in the US or even learn new activities. Maybe activities that you enjoy a lot so that we can play together. My favorite subjects are English and Spanish and other than just going to school I also volunteer as a web coach in my school. As a web coach I help the younger students to understand the internet and to learn how to behave there and what type of dangers can be there, I like this a lot because I like teaching younger people important things. I also have a job which is in my school as well. I work as a homework helper on Wednesdays. I guess by the name of my job you can already tell what I do there, help the children with their homework. I would love to volunteer as something similar to this in the US as well if possible. For my future I already know that I would like to study and start a family. I don't know what I can study yet though but maybe this changes after being in the US for a year. The reasons why I would like to spend a year abroad, especially in the US, is that I think our cultures are very different and I like learning things about other cultures and that I would like to experience a year in an American high school, to see how they are different compared to german schools. Maybe we can kind of exchange some traditions in our culture and try out new things together. I am looking forward to meeting you and I can't wait to spend an important time in my life together with you. Many greetings, Alexandra