Joinville-Our New City

We are living in Joinville in the state of Santa Catarina, which is only one state up from the very bottom of Brazil.  Florianopolis is the capital of Santa Catarina but Joinville is the largest city in the state with nearly 600,000 people.  It's about  a 1 hour flight or a 9 hour bus ride south of Sao Paulo and about a 30-40 minute drive from the beach.  As big as the city supposedly is, it doesn't feel that big to me and we are living right in the downtown area.  I guess I mean that it doesn't feel totally crowded and as hustling and bustling as cities in the US to me.  But most days I don't get farther than a 1 mile radius from our apartment so maybe that's why it doesn't feel very big to me.  Or maybe it's the relaxed Brazilian way of life that makes it feel not so hustling and bustling.  I'm not sure. Anyway, here's a little more about this fun city we are living in.

 

Joinville has one of the highest standards of living in Brazil.  It's very industrial with some big name companies like GM and Whirlpool.  Papai's work is located in this huge industrial park with a gated entry.  The city was settled by the Germans and it is where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was introduced to Brazil.   Missionaries came to teach the Germans.  On that note, there is a bakery right on our street that is well known enough that Papai's co-workers who moved here from São Paulo last month have already heard about how great it is and guess what I found there?!?!?  STOLLEN--a type of German breakfast fruitcake that is my family's German Christmas tradition on Christmas morning.  I don't know that I've actually seen that in a store anywhere!  My grandparents always say it's never as good from a store as it is homemade but from this bakery I'll happily chance it since it will save me the effort of having to find the ingredients here and make it myself.



Other cool things about Joinville:

• It has a huge Orchid festival we just missed in the beginning of November.
• It has a zoo and botanical garden all rolled into one.
• There's one well-known street downtown that just has restaurant after restaurant of any type of food you could want.
• There's a cool German inspired gate entrance at the beginning of the city and a Holland looking windmill.  
• It has at least three huge malls that I know about just in the downtown area--Shopping Mueller, Shopping Casa das Flores, and one more. 
• It's very European.  Not that I've been to Europe, so I guess I wouldn't really know, but Joinville has very nice, well marked bike lanes on the roads everywhere, very nice public exercise parks, and the buses even have their own lanes.
• Joinville is the only city outside of Moscow to have a school of the Bolshoi Ballet, the renowned Russian Ballet Company.  We've walked passed the building and seen the ballerinas on their way to class.  Joinville hosts one of the biggest Dance Festivals in July.

Above:  The kids outside the Bolshoi Ballet 

 

• There's a real circus going on right now--with the tents and everything you see in the movies!  It's live from....Las Vegas.

• Surprise!  90% of the population is white!  As I walk around it doesn't feel like the percentage is quite that high but it is definitely MUCH higher than it was in Recife.
• It's home to some very random museums--a bicycle museum and a clothes iron museum, plus some normal ones--an art museum, one dedicated to Fritz Alt a famous writer, I think, and one dedicated to the Sambaquis, the homes of an ancient people that use to live here to name a few.
• It's full of one way streets so I know how to get to a few places walking but I would have no idea in a car.  Papai's co-worker Rodrigo loves it because he says it's way safer.
• Technically, Joinville falls in the sub-tropical climate-it is NOT a rain forest (but don't tell Safari Girl that!) It has a warm humid temperate climate with hot summers and no dry season.  There's a 53-63 percent chance that it will rain on any given day ALL YEAR.  That said, in the last three weeks we've only had one day that it really rained quite a lot.  The rest of the time it rains and then is all clear in less than an hour.  And no, it does NOT cool the place off.  This region really only has two seasons--warm (with temps averaging between 73 and 87 degrees) and "cold" (temps between 57 and 71 degrees).  It very rarely gets below 50 or above 92 (according to a local weather site).  We have just melted in the heat the first two weeks.  I thought I might never get cold or be dry again--the humidity makes the heat so much more intense, but this last week has been much more pleasant.  

Some pictures of the city: