MEET MY NEW FAMILY

Before I start talking about my first month in the US, I thought it would be a good idea to quickly introduce everyone in my host family. That way I'm not talking about people no one knows about :). So, here's a little introduction to my host family and my current surroundings.

First of all I would like to say that I was very lucky to have ended up in such a nice and cozy family. I heard stories from other exchange students that tell a completely different experience. I can be really happy!

My host family looks like this: there is my host mom, her parents, a host 'sister' (but she is my host mom's niece) and there is another exchange student from Italy named Martina.

We call our host mom "Yaya" here, even though her official name is Vanessa. She is a really nice and strong woman. Truly someone I look up to!

Then there are the grandparents, who live in the same house. We call them "papa" and "nana Rui". Super friendly and funny people! They are really like a substitute grandma and grandpa to me.

Lexi is the niece of Vanessa and the granddaughter of 'papa' and 'nana Rui'. Her official name is Alexia but nobody really calls her that. Most of the time I even call her Lex :). We owe it to her that we ended up in this great family, since she was the one who started the whole idea of ​​becoming a host family. Lexi attends a different school than me and Martina, but we see each other enough to get along very well!

Martina is the other exchange student in the house. We don't call her by her official name either. Her nickname here is Marti. We go to Tesoro high school together, though she is a junior and I am a senior in high school. She has her own friends and I have mine but we have also become very attached to one another!

Last but not least we have the puppies: Hachi and Coco. Hachi is a 6 month old labradoodle. He is the biggest and 'wildest'. Coco is actually a mix of all kinds of races. She just turned 1 a few weeks ago. Coco is the 'quieter' of the two. Although she is often the one who challenges Hachi in all their 'playfights'. I've developed a really good relationship with them already. Every morning they greet me in their playful way and when I come back from school I am completely blown over :).

I think it's clear that I love these people (and dogs) very much, while I've only been here for 2 months now! It really feels like a second family. I'm sure we'll keep in touch after my stay here has ended.

With this I would like to close this short blog update. Next blog post will be about my trip to New York, so definitely something to look forward to!