Brazil is an incredibly welcoming country...

I know cause I’ve been there. Well, been in territory owned by Brazil. And by territory owned, I mean the Brazilian Embassy in Tanzania.

See, Paul, Cassie (our friend who works at the Tanzanian International School), and I went to dinner a couple nights ago. As we were leaving, at about 9PM, we went outside to get a cab. We noticed a lot of cars just down the street, and thought we might pick up a cab there. As we got closer, we saw that all of the cars were outside the Brazilian Embassy, and it quickly became apparent that there was a big party going on. We walked over to the main gate, expecting to be accosted by a guard whom we could then ask to call us a taxi. Instead, no one came near. In fact, no one seemed to even notice us. We walked farther inside, just waiting to be stopped, and finally a guard intercepted us. “Welcome!” he said, “The party is just this way, follow me!” So, we followed.

We were led to the back where there was a couple hundred person lawn party going on. There was Brazilian groove music playing outside a beautifully lit swimming pool. Everyone was dressed in formal wear, tuxedos and long dresses, except for Paul, Cassie, and I, who had t-shirts and shorts on. The guard took our backpacks and a waiter immediately came to us and offered us glasses of wine. Naturally, we obliged him and had a glass. One turned into two, into three, and we realized that we had been drinking for nearly an hour at the Embassy. We took a couple pictures with the Ambassador’s official photographer. Had some appetizers that were floating around. No one had approached us, we had gotten some looks, but none that anyone wanted to act on. Finally, after strolling through the center of the party and getting some of those “what the f is that guy doing here?” looks/whispers, we decided to call it a night and headed back in our long-overdue cab.