Dear host family,
first I want to thank you for reading my letter. Please let me introduce myself, my family and my life in Germany to you:
My name is Johanna, I’m 17 years old and I live in xxx near xxx in North-Rhine-Westphalia. My parents, my brother and I live in a house with a nice garden, which is especially loved by our dog and cat.
Now let me tell you about my family:
My father is 46 years old and employed by Bertelsmann as an editor, my mother is 44 years old and employed by Volksbank as a PR-Manager. Usually we have a good time together. They always help me when I’ve got problems and are quite understanding.
My brother is 12 years old, and we like each other very much. Sometimes he gets on my nerves, like every 12-year-old boy does. We attend the same school, he is in grade 6, and I am in grade 11. My grades are average, except in arts and religion which are my favorite subjects. My foreign languages are English, Latin and now Spanish. After I have finished school I plan to become a teacher for Elementary School or work in the field of arts.
In the afternoon I do my homework, read many books, listen to music, surf in the Internet and of course walk the dog daily, which I really love. At the weekend I do activities with my family like visiting relatives or meet my friends. We go to the movie together, we like to go shopping and do fitness.
My friends describe me as funny, open-minded, reliable, helpful, creative and with a good sense of humor.
In addition to those activities one of my favorite hobbies is drawing and painting: I love the colours and composing pictures. Another one of my favorites is photography: I love taking pictures of landscapes, animals and flowers and even more work with photoshop or other photo programs.
When I was 7 years old I started riding horses until the age of 14. Since I didn’t have the time to keep on, I only can do it every once in a while. I love animals, especially horses and dogs, but no snakes and insects.
Other favourites of mine are training my dog like teaching him tricks and how to behave. And of course travelling is most important to me. For example I went to Italy, France, Greece and Spain. In 2008 my grandparents took me to Florida for a vacation.
This was when I started to think about an exchange year. I had seen Florida as an tourist and now wanted to learn about the daily life in an American family.
I get lots of support from my family: from my parents, especially from my father who participated in a program for work-and-travel in Montana and who is often travelling to New York for business. Also my grandparents who travel to the States quite often, especially my grandma who spent a year as a teacher in Texas.
My father and my grandma are my inspiration and motivation for this experience.
I’m interested in the American school system, I want to learn about the differences and compare both systems. I want to meet a lot of different and interesting people and make new friends. I want to learn about the American traditions like Thanksgiving and culture like American arts and music and the customs in the American families. To learn more about American history it would be interesting to see some of the historic places.
In exchange I would be glad to share my German background, experiences and traditions with you. For example: German fairy tales, music of today and typical German food, the way we spend Christmas and Easter.
I’m very excited and looking forward to your answer.
Lots of greetings from Germany
your Johanna