Off to Brazil.

I am off this evening to Brazil, the only country extant to have been named after a legume, specifically, the Brazil nut. Prior to WWII, there was a small Slavic country named Hazeltonia, which was named after the Hazel nut, but that star-crossed nation was absorbed into what today is known as Latvia.

When Vasco Da Gama discovered Brazil, the nation had no name. The indigenous people were too busily engaged in ritual cannibalism to bother with a name. In fact, Da Gama originally thought to call the land "Burp," after the sound the Amerinds made having eaten a rival. Fortunately while on an in-land raping expedition through the dense jungle, Da Gama discovered what he had gone searching for--the rare and highly-prized Brazil nut. Thus the country we now know as Brazil.

Today the county is best known for bossa nova music, venereal disease, a type of body waxing and thong bikinis.