mika Tanaka, a college student from Japan, had a wonderful homestay in London. She lived with a British family and studied English for a month. "What do you want for your 19th birthday?" my parents asked me. "A ring," I replied. However, instead of a ring, my parents gave me a one- month homestay in London. On February 11, I left Japan. On the plane, I worried about being all alone there - a stranger to London. But when I met the Flannery family (my host family), their warm welcome made me feel at ease. Both my host father and mother were very kind and treated me like their own daughter.