Dear Host Family,

Thank you very much for accepting my application. I'm really looking forward to staying with you and hopefully becoming part of your family. In the following few lines I'd like to tell you something about me and my family. My name is Katharina but friends just call me Kathi. I'm 16 years old and I've got a 19-year-old brother, Patrick and a 10-year old halfsister.

At the moment I'm attending Grammar School that you can compare with high school. My favorite subjects are French, English as well as Philosophy and politics. Once a week after school I take part in an extra French lesson to pass an exam next year.

In my free time I do plenty of things: I love dancing ballet and have dancing practice twice a week, I often attend church and its activities and I enjoy going for a walk with the dog of my neighbor's grandma. I also love meeting my friends to go shopping, swimming or to the cinema with them. In winter-time I enjoy skiing or ice-skating. I've always had a very good relationship with my whole family especially my mum, my dad, my younger sister and my grand-parents. On Saturdays I often spend the afternoons with my dad and my sister and we often visit my grandma, go swimming or ice-skating.

That is why all of them are a bit sad about my going abroad but they all support my decision because they know that it is very important to me and they also think that this year will be a great experience for me. I very much appreciate that I have very good friends and that I really can have fun with them and I can also talk to them when I have problems. I think that the advice of my friends is very important also as far as my high school year is concerned. I also like to learn with them because that's much better then doing it on my own.

As I've already mentioned I'm very much interested in foreign languages but especially in other cultures and countries. I've always been dreaming of spending a year abroad and since a friend of mine told me about her stay in Australia I noticed that a year abroad would be perfect for me. I'm fascinated with the US-school system which offers such a range of subjects and activities.

The main reason why I want to go on an exchange is that I'm very curious and want to gain a lot of experiences for my life. An exchange offers so many opportunities and of course I'm also interested in improving my English. All in all I would say that I'm a very lively and open-minded girl who is always in a good mood and is able to adjust to new conditions very easily. I'm humorous, reliable and I'm very excited to meet you next year.

Sincerely yours,
Katharina