Dear Host Family, Thank you for hosting me for five months! This experience is very important to me. You are making my dream come true. Thanks to your hospitality, I look forward to meeting new people. But the first thing I would like to do is to get to know you well, building a bond that will stay with us forever. I truly hope we can bond and build amazing memories and experiences together in our everyday life. I’m curious about you and hope you’ll be happy to discover who I am. I love to travel, meet new people, learn about new culture and lifestyle so I really hope to have the chance to travel around the world in the future and this experience will be the first of many intense experiences abroad. I’m Irene, I’m 17 years old and I am from Italy. I think I am a reliable person, open‐minded and adaptable. My friends describe me as talkative, sociable, and friendly. I love listening to music and watching movies. I recently started watching Disney cartoons in English to improve the understanding of English before leaving Italy, and I never get tired of them! I also love spending time with my friends. I enjoy going out with them to a café in the center of the town, which is something very typical for Italian teenagers. On Saturday nights, we often go out together to the movies, or just out for dinner and chatting. Another thing that I love to do is to cook. Every Sunday my family and I like to cook something special, and we invite our relatives at home to eat lunch all together. I love baking, but I am quite good also with typical Italian dishes that I would love for you to taste. I’d like to share my culture with you, and I hope you’ll do the same with me: I would be more than happy to tell you how we spend our holidays! I am also very excited about learning new traditions and cooking your typical dishes together. I love sports! When I was little, I did ballet and I used to ride horses, but now I go to the gym because I have less free time to spend on my many passions. My high school is demanding, but I consider myself to be a good student and I always try my best! The languages I study are English, German, and Spanish. I really like languages I think I have always liked them since I was little. I used to take English lessons with a private tutor. I wonder what school will be like there: I am thrilled to be part of different aspects of your culture, like a true local teenager. Even though I like sports, sometimes I am a little lazy and enjoy the couch quite a bit. What are your hobbies? Do you like to play or watch some sport in particular? I would love to learn about it and to do some of those activities together. I would like to play with you some board games from Italy, and learn about your favorite games. I have a big family: I am the oldest of three. My mother’s name is Antonella, my father’s name is Tommaso. I have a strong relationship with them. They support me in everything I do and I hope I will gain your trust as well. My youngest brother’s name is Leonardo, is 5, my sister Federica is 13. I love my grandmother, Nella, very much. She lives 1 hour away from me. Growing up she has been an important help to my brothers and me. I also have a cat, Coco, and I really love him. I love spending time with my family, and I hope I will manage to build a strong relationship with you as well. Overall, in the USA, I’d like to grow as a person, learn how to relate with people from a different culture, while getting used to a new daily routine. I think coming there I will discover a new side of myself and come back to Italy as a different person. I’d like to find a new home away from home and to be happy, as well as making you all happy for having me there! Thank you, Irene