Dear host family, First of all, I want to tell you how grateful I am for the opportunity to spend my year abroad with you as a part of your family. Thank you for taking me in for a whole year and giving me the opportunity to meet your family and live with you. Since I don't know you yet or anything about you, I would like you to learn as much as possible about me in this letter and that you get a little insight into my life. My name is Lara and I live in Germany. In my free time I love to read, draw or go for a walk in the park, but also to spend time with my friends and family. I am in the 11th grade and I really like going to school. My favorite subjects are languages, so German, English and French. I also enjoy other subjects like art and biology, basically everything except math and sports.I am really ambitious when it comes to school, I like to spend a lot of time studying but the two subjects just don't suit me. I would love, when I'm in America, to choose subjects that I don't have here, for example, I definitely want to choose drama and maybe I'll find a sport there that I enjoy, I'm actually a very unathletic but I’d still try it if I find an interesting one. I also like going to school because that's where I spend most of my time with my friends. We usually get together and spend time talking or discussing different things. Most of my friends have different religious or cultural backgrounds than me and these are things we like to talk about. With my best friend I often meet just so we can read, bake or talk together. I really enjoy spending time learning about other cultures, languages, and religion. I’m not religious myself, but I would be really interested to know if you are. Of course I would like to learn not only something about your culture, but also show you mine. My parents are both from Turkey so I speak Turkish in addition to German and English. I would also love to cook or bake something Turkish for you. Since I'm just telling you about my family, I might as well get on with it.I actually have a large family therefore I will only tell you about my parents and siblings. So my family consists of my parents, my little brother and my two older step siblings. My parents are separated so I live with my mother and my little brother and still we have a very close relationship to each other that is one thing that is very important to me about my family. And we have four small water turtles as pets, which of course also belong to the family. I would like to know if you also have pets and honestly I hope so. What I can tell you about my family is that, as I said, my parents come from Turkey and that's why we actually go on vacation to Turkey every summer. That's very nice because it's too cold in Germany for my taste, which is why I'm also looking forward to America. I'm really not a person who can stand a lot of cold which is quite ironic when I think about it now because I love snow. I'm just thinking if there are any other weird things you should know about me but I can't think of anything. Maybe I should just tell you something about my character and then let you decide if you think something is weird. Well, I am a very friendly and helpful person. It makes me very happy when others come to me with a problem or when they need help, because I like to listen to them and try to give them advice if they want it.I actually like meeting new people, but I often find it hard. I would say I'm a pretty ambitious person and do my best especially at school. Unfortunately, I'm also pretty perfectionistic and usually put a lot of pressure on myself. And I would also say that I am very self-confident and honest. I’m also pretty direct and I like to compliment others when I notice something nice about them. But I can also be reserved when I don't know others that well yet. So I am a relatively open person, but not yet as open as I would like to be. That's one of the reasons why I want to do this year abroad. Of course I want to improve my English, but it is also important for me to come out of my shell and become more independent. Actually, I'm looking forward to everything. I think the challenge I have the most respect for is becoming more independent and settling into America.It scares me to settle into a new daily life that I can't even imagine yet. My everyday life consists of going to school in the morning, spending time with my friends at school or coming home and studying for school and spending the rest of the day with my family or alone. It won't be easy for me to be away from my friends and family for so long.I don't really know what I'm going to do after I graduate either. I mean I want to study, but I don't know what yet and I hope to find out a bit more about myself on my year abroad. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you again for hosting me. I am really looking forward to finally getting to know you.I’m very grateful that I can spend my year abroad with you. Sincerely yours Lara