My Host Family Placement

A very exciting day.....

I was one of the first of our group to receive my host family. We were told by AYUSA that we would probably get our host family sometime in late July or early August. However, I received a fantastic email on May 29th, 2008:

"Dear Allegra Bel,
I have some exciting news for you! PI, our German partner, has found you a Host Family. I am attaching the details of your placement as well as the contact information for your Host Family. Please contact your Host Family ASAP and introduce yourself. Feel free to contact me with any additional questions that you may have..."

Wow, I could hardly contain my excitement as I opened the email attachment, which was one page showing my host family (names, ages, professions, contact info), my local representative (name and contact info), and my school (name, address).

I will be staying with the Hameyer family:

• father - Franz-D. - 50 years old and is an engineer
• mother - Heidi - 47 years old and is a housewife
• brother - Matthias - 18 years old
• sister - Laura - 14 years old
• pets - 2 cats and 1 dog and 1 HORSE!!!! (yay!)

I will be living in Bad Honnef, Germany and attending the school, Gymnasium Schloss Hagerhof. Here are a bunch of cool things I found that relate with my school and area in Germany.

• This is a picture of my school that I will be attending: http://wikimapia.org/2325757/de/Gymnasium_Schloss_Hagerhof
• This is the most amazing information about my school. (It's a super nice private school/boarding school and is well known for it's sports and music... and also get this, it has riding stables!!!!!): http://www.hagerhof.de/englbody.html
• A little information about the city I will be living in: http://www.study-in-germany.de/english/4.22.3.858.html

I'm so excited!!!! I'll be leaving for Washington D.C. on August 9th, and then will be leaving for Germany on August 10th. Then once I arrive in Germany, I will attend a month long language camp in Hedersleben, Germany. Finally I will travel to Bad Honnef to attend school and spend the rest of the year with my host family.