Ciao, cara famiglia ospitante!
At first, I would like to thank you for opening your country, your culture, your house and your family to a foreign exchange student. It’s such a big chance for us and without you we couldn’t live that dream. I am also very thankful for you reading my letter, because that way you give me the possibility to introduce myself. My name is Anna. I live in Germany in the north of Bavaria. My hometown, xxx, is not very big, is has 9000 inhabitants, but it’s half an hour away from Frankfurt. To get to know me a little bit, I will tell you something about me and my life.
I am an open, tolerant, nice, cheerful, honest and sometimes a little bit chaotic person. I live in an apartment together with my mother and my sister. Because my parents are divorced, my father lives together with his girlfriend in our neighbortown, and we visit them every second weekend. I go to the 10th grade of a so called Gymnasium, which is the type of school in Germany which makes it possible to do the A-levels (Like liceo in Italy).
My friends would describe me as a merry, humourous and relaxed person who is practically always in a good mood and can laugh on itself. I am very close to them and we are always there for each other to talk about problems or just to have a good time. My best friend, Monika, I have even known for almost ten years – in summer we are going to celebrate our jubilee. It’s the same with my parents. I can always approach to them. With my mum, Brigitte, an accounting management assistant, I rather talk about my feelings, with my dad, Dirk, an engineer, I talk about problems in school or with my friends. But I think the most important person in my life is my sister Sarah. She is 18 years old and she is going to start to study next year. We always stick together, and she is also my best friend and a funny, happy person.
Now about my free time. My lessons from Monday to Thursday last from 7:55am to 3:15pm and on Friday to 1:00pm. After school, I like it to meet my friends. Then we listen to music, do our homework, watch TV, cook something together or just talk. We always have a lovely time together. Besides, I like to read, to photograph, to write, to listen to music, to surf in the internet, to watch good movies, to cook and sometimes to bake. At school, I participated in many different extracurricular activities like choir, theatre, unicycle and different dancing groups. Dancing is one of the most important things in my life. I did dancing types like Flamenco, Rock ‘n’ Roll, Jazz Dance, standard dances and character dance. I love the feeling to be part of a group, to learn a choreography together and even to dance on a show – It is such a great and exciting experience to tremble with excitement before a performance when after all everything goes well. I did it one or two times a week, but not currently because there is no offer at my school and the next dancing school is more than one hour away. Besides, I did a kick boxing class until lately (once a week) and I am going to do karate twice a week as from now. Of course I would like to continue these hobbies but if it is not possible I would love to try a new sports, to learn an instrument or any other activity your family likes to do or which is offered in your school or your city – I am open for everything. And I deliver newspapers twice a week because I do not want my parents to have to pay my exchange year alone.
At the weekends with my mum, she, my sister and I like to relax, to go shopping or to visit a city. With my dad, we often go out to be in the nature and hike. Also we cook together and visit friends. Moreover we help with the garden work, with cleaning the house and do things like emptying the dishwasher or setting the table. With my friends I go shopping, to the cinema or we go out to a party sometimes.
Maybe you wonder why I want to do an exchange year. Of course I want to learn a new language, but that’s not the main reason. I want to be part of a different culture, to gather new experiences, to have a new way of life and to find new friends. I would like to become a member of your family with all rights and obligations and I want to take part in your family activities. I want to live in a different surrounding with another way of living, a different climate, language, culture and view on the things. I hope to become more independent and outgoing. Additionally, I already participated in a finland-exchange for ten days, and it was such a great experience – At first it was a bit of culture shock, but then I found new friends and we did so much lovely things like to go shopping in Helsinki, to swim in an hole in the ice of a big lake, to go to the chocolat museum, to eat salmiakki together(similar to licorice, but with an extreme, salty taste, so that we as Germans did not like it, but the Finnish love it.) and much more things – that’s one of the doings which persuaded me to do an exchange year. Also the school was quite different there. It was relaxed and not as strict as we thought because of Finlands good education system. Another were the cooking and baking lessons, because we did not know something like this in Germany and it was very cool. In summer, the fins came to Germany, and we spent a lovely time together again.
After school I want to study, although I don’t know what yet. But I think something with architecture, interior design, languages or development aid. My dream job would be a one where you can travel a lot, to help people and also to be creative.
At school my favorite subjects are English, Spanish and Geography. I love languages and especially Spanish is such a beautiful language with a quite easy grammar (At least much easier than French.). But for me, Italian is the most beautiful sounding language in Europe and even in the whole world. But to learn it is only one of thousands of reasons why I want to go to Italy; I love travelling, and among other countries like Sweden, Turkey, Croatia, France, Greece or Spain we travelled to Italy very often. When we drive through the border checkpoint, theres a big change yet – Of course the streets, signs and vegetation is different, but also the mood, atmosphere and the way of people acting. The guys in Italy are so much more temperamental, passionate and fun-loving than in Germany, and I am very fascinated by your lifestyle and easyness. And of course I also love your food, architecture and fashion, the beautiful cities, the weather and the seaside.
I hope you were able to receive an impression of my personality and motivation and I would love it to live with you for one year.
Cari saluti
Anna
