Brazil, come on down!

Brazil is actually not a first-time visitor -- not even close, really -- but someone in Brazil just came by this week and Brazil has never gotten first-time visitor treatment. That means, YO, BRAZIL, come on down!

Sure, this is cheating, but I also don't want to cheat Brazil out of its due. So here we go:

The country is officially the Federative Republic of Brazil. It is the largest country in South America and, sizewise, could eat all of Central America for lunch and still be hungry. The country covers more than 3.2 million square mils and has a population of 211 million, making it the world's fifth-largest country by area and sixth-largest by population. The capital is Brasilia, its most populous city is Sao Paulo, and the only damn place in the country anybody cares about is Rio because that's where Carnivale is at its biggest. Maybe I'm wrong. Could be New Orleans, but they call it Mardi Gras there.

The country is bounded by the Atlantic on the east, with a coastline of more than 4,600 miles, and borders every country in South America except Ecuador and Chile. The country was discovered by Europeans -- the many tribal nations already there might quibble with the term "discovered" -- by Pedro Alvares Cabral, who claim the land for Portugal, which led to Brazil becoming the largest Portuguese-speaking country in the world, largely on account of Portugal is really fucking small. The Portuguese colony became independent in 1822. It went through a lot of political formulations before becoming a democratic federal republic in 1988 under its current constitution, adopted in that year.

Anyway, Brazil has the Amazon basin and a lot of beautiful countryside, but it ain't all fish and chips. They have serious environmental and poverty issues. But it looks good:

So who am I to say? Welcome to the Eff You family, Brazil. Glad you finally got your official welcome. Come back soon, and bring your friends.