Health & Fitness
What do Darwin Australia, Kalymnonos and Tarpon have in common?
Tarpon Springs should consider Darwin Australia's request to be a Sister City.
What do Darwin Australia, the Island of Kalymnos in Greece and Tarpon Springs have in common?
The answer is nothing yet, but it may not be a bad idea.
Darwin a city of 127,500 on Australia's northern Territory, suggested that Tarpon Springs become one of its Sister Cities. Interestingly enough, in 1982 the Greek island of kalymnos became Darwin's first Sister City. That could make Darwin and Tarpon sought of second cousins.
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About 2.6 percent of Darwin's population, or almost 3,000 residents, claim Greek Orthodox religious heritage, so both cities have a foundation for fostering close cultural ties. A signficent number of immigrants from Greece and Italy settled in Darwin during the 1960s and 70s. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Greek is the second most common language spoken in Darwin, behind English, with Italian coming in third.
Tarpon Springs currently has Sister City Program relationships with Kalymnos, Halki and Simi in Greece as well as Larnaca, Cypress, but it might be a good idea to also embrace other potential tourist areas, so their residents get a warm friendly feeling when considering vacation spots.
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Darwin is a tourist town and its adventurous residents, looking to travel around the world, might want to visit their American Sister City cousins. Darwin's avid fisherman would surely want to try casting a few lines in the Gulf.
Darwin's only other US Sister City is Anchorage, Alaska. If you were a Darwin resident which Sister City would you want to visit Tarpon or Anchorage, Alaska? We have better food and beaches.
About 900,000 Australians visited the US last year, with that number expected to rise to 1-million by the end of this year won't it be great if Tarpon got in on that action?
Can you imagine Tarpon Avenue and the Sponge Docks lined with US, Australian and Greek flags, when we have a Sister City signing festival.
Tarpon could also borrow ideas from some of Darwin's quaint festivals like its annual Beer Can Regatta, where people make boats from beer cans. There can be an under-21 component using soda cans.
I haven't seen any newspapers pick up on this fun and unique story topic, which might get some national noterity once a relationship is consumated.
Happy Trails everyone
