Dear host family, Firstly, I want to thank you for welcoming me and helping my dream of doing an exchange to the United States come true. I feel honored by the fact that you are willing to let me participate in your family’s life. I am Penelope. I live in Germany and recently got my first school diploma. I am a very open-minded and curious person and I love getting to know other cultures. When traveling I am always fascinated by the diversity of the other cultures and try to learn from each one. I hope I will be able to expand my knowledge and build my own image of what the United States of America are like. I always try to be helpful and love meeting new people. I am very artistic, socially interested, ambitious and independent, especially when it comes to Schoolwork’s. I enjoy dancing ballet, doing judo, knitting and crocheting, handy crafts in general and I am very interested in animals, especially sea creatures and horses. Equestrian sports have always inspired me. Although I am unfortunately not able to frequently follow this interest I´ve ridden a few times in my life. I am thinking that I might find some school clubs at the high school I will be going to, that I will be able to join to learn new things and pick up some new hobbies. One of my wishes would be that I maybe could continue my ballet classes through one of the clubs or maybe even get into riding, although I would of course understand that this might not be possible. The thought of an American high school makes me really excited because I imagine them as bright and wonderful as I’ve seen it in movies. The cheerleaders and the football team, the student’s community and the prom ball are things that I hope to experience. America itself seems, to me, as such a great and big country. The diversity of the nature and big cities that it bears are truly impressive and I want to see and learn from it as much as possible. I want to know how different an American family lives, in comparison to my German family. I live with my mum who works in the aluminium industry, my dad branch manager of a wholesale company, my little brother who just started primary school and my beloved dog sherry. We are very close with my grandparents too. We as a Family live in a city with many cultural opportunities. We for example we went to an exhibition which was about the ancient Egypt and Tutanchamun. In case of bad weather, we sometimes watch "Sonntagsmärchen" which are movies about German fairy tales, or cook and bake together. This also would be a tradition that I would love to share with you as my host family. I also watch lots of documentaries about sea creatures. I want to become a marine biologist one day so I also see my exchange as a big opportunity to maybe visit the American habitats of other animals. Iam looking forward to becoming a part of your family for a year and hope that we will make lots of amazing memories together. warm regards, Penelope