Hostfamily Brief

Dear Host family,

first I want to thank you for giving me the oppurtunity of spending one year in America. It has been one of my biggest wishes for about 3 years. In this letter I want to tell you something about me, my family and friends, my home, my hobbys and my reasons for this exchange.

My name is Linda, I´m fourteen years old and I live in the second biggest city in Germany, Hamburg. It´s in north of Germany, and, in my opinion, it´s one of the best and most beautifuls citys in the world. My school is named Heisenberg-Gymnasium Hamburg and it has about 700 students and my way to school is very short, so I only have to walk about five minutes. My fvourite subjects are English, Spanish, History and Arts. I´m a really openminded person and I´m always interested in getting to know new people and haveing a good relationship with them. Furthermore I´m polite and outgoing.

My family, namely my mother, my father, my older brother, and me, live in the south of hamburg in a quarter calls harburg in a house with a garden. My father´s name is An, and he is an engineer. My mother´s called Jin and she works as an interpreter at a chinese masseur. My brother, Kai, is 17 years old, and he is a stundent at the same school as I am, in the 11th class. Both of my parents came from China to Germany 20 years ago, so all my other relatives lives in China. My grandparents live in a really small town near Shanghai and I´m visiting them every two years.

On a typical weekday, I wake up at 7:00 am. Then I eat a bit for breakfast and get ready for school, which starts at 8:00 am. On Mondays, Wednesdays and fridays school finishs at 1:30 pm, so I get home and have lunch with my brother. After that I do some homework, and call or meet some friends. After school on tuesdays and thursdays, it ends at  4:00 pm, I go to my dance classes, I dance ballett for more than 11 years now, so I arrive home at 6:30 pm. Every day me and my parents have dinner together.

At the weekend, I often meet my friends on Saturday to have fun together and just hang around with them. Sunday in the morning I sometimes have ballett lessons and after that, every Sunday, I have to go to a chinese school, where I learn, among other things, Chinese grammar. In the evening, I have piano lessons, so you can see, my weekends are all full, and I havent got much time, but I love them.

In my freetime, I like to hear music like rock, dubstep and pop music. I am learning to play the piano, too, so every day I´m practising a lot. I enjoy meeting my friends, because we always have very much fun, whatever we do. We like to go shopping, go to the cinema or just hangout at someones house and have a sleepover. I like to do sport, too, and as I already said, I do ballett and sometimes I am going for a walk with a friend and her dog in the forest. I really like to take pictures and to read. My favourite books are “My Sister´s Keeper”, ”The Last Song” and the serie “The Mortal Instruments”. I also like to travel  and I´ve already been in Spain, Italy, Denmark, Poland, China, England and France. For me it´s intresting to get to know to new people and new cultures.

The reason, why I would like to spend an exchange year in America, is that I want to get to know the USA. I´ve talked to some exchange students, and they all were really enthusiastic and they said, that it is a great experience, and I want to do the same experience, too. I want to be involved in your family, your life, the high school and just everything, what America includes. In this year I, of course, want to improve my English, make new friends and be closer to the american culture and lifestyle.

If you wish, I would also bring the german and chinese culture closer to you. I would tell you about my life in germany, about german people, how school works in germany and so on.

I thank you again for giving me the possibility to spend a year with your family and for fulfilling my dreams.

Kind regards, Linda Luo