Bryant High School in Cottondale experienced a jazzy musical treat Monday all the way from Schorndorf About 35 members of the Max Planck Gymnasium Big Band performed a 40-minute show at Bryant High which consists of students between the ages of 13 and 18 is visiting Tuscaloosa as part of the Sister Cities International program The MPG Big Band also performed Sunday for about an hour during the second day of the Kentuck Festival of the Arts in Northport The band performed “Birdland,” “At Last,” “Skyfall,” “Saturday Night Blues” and more Members of the band took in the sights of Tuscaloosa after they arrived Friday afternoon with some attending the University of Alabama’s homecoming festivities Host families also treated the band members to such Southern delicacies as barbecue The MPG Big Band is part of a 53-student delegation from Schorndorf Eighteen of the students will stay with Tuscaloosa host families through Oct Members of the band were scheduled to depart Tuscaloosa on Tuesday headed for a performing tour that includes stops in Buffalo The Max Planck Gymnasium Big Band consists of:  Tuscaloosa has been a sister city to Schorndorf since 1996 Tuscaloosa’s other sister cities are Narashino a medium-sized center with about 40,000 inhabitants in the Rems-Murr district is planning an urban development extension of the »suburb« to the north of the train station The goal is to develop a dense neighbourhood where multiple generations can come together to live The core of the plan is the 1.5 hectare site of the former construction and municipal depot and a strong sense of community should be created in the new district through common living spaces as well as through the combination of public areas and diverse options for local infrastructure The project managers are intentionally focusing on resource-saving The area should be designed to have low vehicle traffic with a focus on public local transportation and spaces for sharing services and deliveries The project was submitted by the city of Schorndorf for the Internationale Bauausstellung StadtRegion Stuttgart 2027 (IBA’27 – International building exhibition Stuttgart urban region) the project should be based on the objectives and issues taken up by the IBA’27 What all of these have in common is a desire to handle materials and social relationships in a sustainable and respectful manner This competition was submitted by an ArchDaily user. If you'd like to submit a competition, call for submissions or other architectural 'opportunity' please use our "Submit a Competition" form The views expressed in announcements submitted by ArchDaily users do not necessarily reflect the views of ArchDaily You'll now receive updates based on what you follow Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors If you have done all of this and still can't find the email some in German and some in Ghanaian English local people added a few Southern "y'alls" to the mix of international languages The common themes of the words were awe and curiosity spoken by representatives from four countries across four continents who visited The Gateway – Alberta's Innovation and Discovery Center a $3.275 million digital library that houses large computer screens interactive tables and kiosks that patrons of the center can use to access a trove of information The stop was part of a weeklong tour by representatives of Tuscaloosa's three sister cities “It’s so nice to have representatives from around the world in one place,” said Lisa Keyes executive director of Tuscaloosa Sister Cities International The Sister Cities program serves to create economic cultural and educational ties with cities in other countries to foster relationships and host exchanges Tuscaloosa’s program celebrated 30 years of partnership with the Japanese city of Narashino 20 years with the German city of Schorndorf and five years with the Ghanaian city of Sunyani-Techiman Tuscaloosa Sister Cities International hosted about 50 representatives from the three countries and organized a tour with various activities to showcase Tuscaloosa and the surrounding area “Our mission is to promote peace through friendship,” Keyes said “(Sister Cities) brings the world to our doorsteps … I think we need this more than ever now as we are a global society.” The delegates’ tour started on Tuesday and included visiting the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute exploring The Gateway on Thursday and watching students perform at the Alberta School of Performing Arts delegates re-signed the official Sister Cities partnership documents host families and friends of Tuscaloosa Sister Cities was held at the University of Alabama While it wasn’t Apraku Nkehiah’s first visit to the U.S. it was the Sunyani-Techiman city assembly member’s first time to Tuscaloosa He said his first impression was amazement and he liked the hospitality he received he said Birmingham’s Civil Rights Institute and Alabama’s segregation history resonated with him it’s a shock to me why previously they were behaving that way,” Nkehiah said “When you look at the (civil rights) history and how far you have come delegates learned about Tuscaloosa’s government and Nkehiah said it’s beneficial to understand a different system “We see how the City Council is run so we that we can copy the good aspects of it and implement it back home,” Nkehiah said Nkehiah is one of six delegates from Ghana Sunyani-Techiman was selected in 2011 because of ties a University of Alabama geography professor had to the city and the desire to expand the Sister Cities program Werner Neher is a City Council member in Schorndorf and was one of 22 German delegates attending the celebration He said the Sister Cities program is an educational tool Werner Neher’s spouse and a delegate for Schorndorf said having these exchanges helps foster understanding beyond stereotypes “You see we’re not that different,” Kevin Neher said “We feel like we’re from different countries Both Kevin and Werner Neher talked about Tuscaloosa’s vast layout without a defined city center we got to walk to the restaurant and it’s so funny; sidewalks are empty,” Kevin Neher said in Germany and Europe people walk everywhere.” “And every corner there’s another church,” Werner Neher said Kevin and Werner Neher said they feared prejudice coming to Alabama as a same-sex married couple “We wondered if we should pretend or lessen the appearance,” Kevin Neher said Schorndorf was chosen as a sister city in 1996 because of the Mercedes-Benz plant opening in Tuscaloosa The city was the birthplace of Gottlieb Daimler an engineer who helped develop the first automobile The German company Daimler AG is the parent company of Mercedes-Benz the 21 Japanese representatives’ flight was delayed and they arrived a day late on Wednesday Taisuke Miyamoto is mayor of Narashino and visited Tuscaloosa for his second time Narashino was Tuscaloosa’s first Sister City chosen in 1986 because of the opening of the JVC plant and the city’s closeness in size and population to Tuscaloosa Miyamoto said he enjoyed seeing Tuscaloosa’s landscape He also enjoyed the breakfasts — especially the waffle machine He said the student exchange program is the best part of the Sister City relationship allowing Tuscaloosa students to visit in Narashino and Narashino students to visit in Tuscaloosa “I think young people learning about another culture is a good experience for them,” Miyamoto said “I am so happy to hear people are interested in Japan and want to teach people about it.” Keyes said every other year they switch between sending high school students and adults to Germany and Japan They are still working on an exchange with Ghana she is taking applications from students at Northridge and Paul W Bryant high schools to spend 10 days next June in Schorndorf living with host families and touring the city When international students or adult delegates come to the U.S. “It’s really a gem to get people involved internationally,” Keyes said “You give these students the chance to expand their horizons.” Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox said the opportunity to host the celebration and have such long-standing relations with these cities is meaningful With current technology and transportation Maddox said it has brought the world closer together and these relationships highlight that Schorndorf and Sunyani reminds us that we are connected on so many levels and so many ways,” Maddox said in an email our sister city relationships have connected our students and our community in ways that have enhanced our educational system …Hopefully it will continue to bind us now and into the future.” By: Tim Wright Use of this constitutes acceptance of our privacy policy The material on this site may not be reproduced except with the prior written permission of Rodman Media red and yellow stripes of the German flag blew in the breeze Friday in Tuscaloosa A banner with mini-flags of both countries was draped around the columns of the Jemison-Van de Graaff Mansion behind a group of students from Central who were awaiting the arrival of 21 German students waited with open arms as the German friend she made over the summer ran to meet her Gutierrez said she is excited to show her friend around Alabama after her friend showed her around Schorndorf during Gutierrez’s visit to Germany earlier this summer “I think it’s great for them to experience a new culture as well as it was for us to experience their culture,” she said German students from Tuscaloosa’s sister city arrived in Tuscaloosa on Friday for a two-week stay to learn about U.S The German students will live with host families and tour museums “The primary purpose for these exchanges is to educate them about the United States history and customs and to give them a sense of what life is like in the USA,” said Lisa Keyes executive director of Tuscaloosa Sister Cities Keyes said Tuscaloosa Sister Cities’ partnership with Schorndorf began in 1996 Tuscaloosa is also sister cities with Narashino The organization’s mission is to promote long-term global people-to-people relationships through the development of international leadership friendship and understanding and to facilitate productive partnerships with cultural Keyes said student and delegate exchanges help to maintain a strong bond between sister cities the students will attend a homecoming football game at Northridge High the Tuscaloosa Federal Building and Courthouse the Mildred Westervelt Warner Transportation Museum and the University of Alabama campus the Ferguson Center and the Museum of Natural History in Tuscaloosa They will tour the Vulcan museum and park and shop at the Galleria in Birmingham Space & Rocket Center and take a ghost walking tour of historic Twickenham district Optional weekend activities with their host families include Kentuck Festival of the Arts and a tailgating party during next weekend’s University of Alabama football game against the University of Tennessee said she is most excited to see what all the hype is about with American football but she hopes to take away a lot more knowledge of American culture “There are a lot of things we know about America but I want to see what’s real and what’s true about it and the culture,” Ladwein said but I hope I will know more after this trip.” she hopes the students take away a feeling of friendship and knowledge of a new place and its culture to take home and share with friends and family it’s their first opportunity to experience a different culture and it’s life-changing for them in many ways,” she said “It gives them perspective for another way of living for different culture and different history but realize we are all so much more alike than we are different.” You don't have permission to access the page you requested What is this page?The website you are visiting is protected.For security reasons this page cannot be displayed Sign In Register HistoryNet Tucked away in the relative obscurity of Württemberg province in Germany has undertaken one of the most ambitious aviation projects in recent history Under the leadership of owner Achim Engels the company is operating a small factory production line producing full-scale airworthy replicas of German World War I aircraft Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers In 1964 an Ohio woman took up the challenge that had led to Amelia Earhart’s disappearance Did Curtiss-Wright deliberately sell defective engines to the U.S “History is a guide to navigation in perilous times History is who we are and why we are the way we are.” HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the world’s largest publisher of history magazines photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians sign me up!