Ex-Exchange Student from Germany visits RCF
Rotary Club of Farragut welcomed Francesca Rubesamen, 25, a German/Italian former Rotary Youth Exchange student who visited the club during its meeting in Fox Den Country Club Wednesday, April 12.
“I used to live in Italy when I did my exchange” in 2014-2015, when she spent the year attending Webb School of Knoxville, Rubesamen said. “Now, I live in Munich, Germany.”
She became an exchange student because “I knew I wanted to live in the U.S. for a year because I took a trip to California with my mom in 2010.
“I guess I just fell in love with the country,” she added. “Then I found out about the Rotary Youth Exchange program, and I found a club in Turin, Italy, which is the city I was living in. It sponsored me, and it’s always an exchange, so I would come to the U.S. and an American student would come to Italy.”
While she was accepted to come to the United States, she recalled, “It’s never sure where you’re actually going to do your exchange,” Rubesamen said.
“Then one day, I got an e-mail from (RCF member) Bill Nichols, “who was overseeing the RYE program for the club, she recalled.
“It’s nice. I love it,” Rubesamen said about East Tennessee. “I think I also chose the best time of the year — in spring. I love it.
“I have really good memories,” she added. “The landscape is pretty. The weather is nice. I love taking walks around the neighborhoods.
“People are super friendly,” she observed.
Rubesamen arrived in Knox County Thursday, April 6, and stayed with RCF member Leah Berry.
“I’m leaving tomorrow night to go to (Washington) D.C., where I will meet another host family — I have three host families — I will be there for a week then I will go to New York City for three days.
“So it’s a mix of visiting and traveling,” she added.
In Germany, Rubesamen studies tourism in a Munich grad school and works at the Bavarian tourism department.
“There are a lot of possibilities with that major,” she said.
