German-American Sister Cities

Sister cities are not cities with the same name. They are connections based on similarities in size, geography, cultural similarity, trade partnerships, etc. Some US cities have numerous sister cities abroad. Seattle, for example, is sisters with many cities, including Bergen Norway, Galway Ireland, Kobe Japan, and many cities in Asia. Here is a list:

http://en.sistercity.info/countries/us.html

Some very small towns, like my town of Bainbridge Island, have sister cities. Ours is Ometepe, an island in Nicaragua. People from Bainbridge have gone there to help build schools and water systems, and a delegation goes each year to help with the coffee harvest and bring back coffee beans to sell to support the program.

http://bainbridgeometepe.org

I don't see the two Texas towns you mention on the list, but other places in Texas are there.

Cool list!

Some make more sense than others...

Any chance Rick could create a Sister-Cities Tour? Sounds like it's been done....

In the 1980s we lived in Roßtal in Franken. It was not till we were back in the states that we learned it was sister city to Frankenmuth, MI, near where I was raised. Frankenmuth was settled by missionaries from Roßtal. I do not know how successful the conversion of the Indians was. I do know the founding town fathers of Frankenmuth turned their Bavarian heritage into monetary success.

I am a little perplexed by the notion of a sister-cities tour. In most cities, groups in the city arrange exchanges between the sister cities. We lived in Belleville, IL, sister city to Paderborn, DR. Our children visited Paderborn, we hosted children from Paderborn visiting us. We had one young man for a semester. If your town has a sister city, look for a sister-city organization. That is your best bet.

Agree with Paul. Sister city exchanges are usually organized by the cities themselves: by the local government, by schools, churches, sports clubs, whatever. It's not so much a touristy thing but more of a personal and cultural exchange. Why else would anyone from the United States ever visit a place like Paderborn. ;-)

Many cities have several partnerships of that kind in different countries. Many West German towns for instance had partnerships with East German towns while the wall was still up. This was an important way to keep up personal connections. Obviously, the visits were a bit of a lopsided affair at that time.
There are also a number of partnerships between former war enemies, one of the most famous ones probably being Dresden and Coventry, both of which were terribly destroyed in WW II.

So, if you are interested in sister city tours, you may want to ask at the city hall or town officials for exchange activities or tours.

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As far as towns with identical names go, there are tons of those, simply because many immigrants named their newly founded town after their home town. That would make quite a tour. Start out with visiting New York and York, Harlem and Haarlem, and make a round trip from Han(n)over, Germany, to about twenty places by that name in the United States.

My kids really enjoyed their visits to Paderborn. First, they could go to the bars with the host kids. Second, they could take that amazing innovation, public transportation, all over. Third, they got to meet other German kids on both ends, in our house and in Germany, and this was good for them. I loved the exchange. I wish that they could have gone for longer. My wife and I hope to get to Paderborn. We have good friends in Cottbus which is probably a little like Paderborn - just a German town where Germans live and do stuff. We enjoy visiting our friends, who know where all the cheap restaurants are.

Driving through France once we came upon a sign to "Montreal". We could not resist having a look at this town with the same name as our city in Canada. So we took a little detour. It was a boring, dull little place with nothing to recommend it except a tiny park, in which there was a red bench set against a stone wall with trailing ivy vines on it. Perfect photo op. And that is the only thing I remember about Montreal, France.

In a way Paderborn is interesting. A few years back I did a day trip, the afternoon, to Paderborn, my first time there after all these trips to North Germany.