Currency: Brazilian real
Cool facts about Brazil:
- There is Ronaldo da Silva prison in Santa Rita Do Sapucai, Brazil allows inmates to pedal stationary bicycles that power street lights in a nearby city in exchange for reduced sentences.
- In another program, prisons is Brazil offer their prisoners reduced sentence of 4 days (up to 48 days/year) for every Book they read and write a report on.
- Brazil has twice authorized illegal, local production of patented HIV/AIDS drugs in order to save the lives of its people
- Only 388,000 slaves were brought to the U.S. One million went to Jamaica and nearly five million went to Brazil.
- Due to high import taxes, a PS4 in Brazil costs roughly $1850.
- In 2003, Brazil became the first country in the world to totally ban indoor tanning for anyone of any age.
- In preparation for the world cup, prostitutes in Brazil were enrolling in free English classes so that they can provide better service for tourists during the World Cup.
- Apple lost its rights to use the iPhone trademark in Brazil because a local company, Gradiente Eletronicas, had registered it back in 2000.
- Tiririca, a Brazilian Clown, used slogans including “What does a federal congressman do? I really don’t know – but if you vote for me, I’ll tell ya” and “It can’t get any worse, vote Tiririca”. He became the second-most-voted congressman in Brazil’s history, with 1,348,295 votes.
- Norway is the only national football team in the world that has never lost to Brazil. (2 wins and 2 draws).
- There is a single Cashew tree in Natal, Brazil that has a mutation which allowed it to cover an area of 7500 square meters.
- In Laguna, Brazil, bottlenose dolphins actively herd fish towards local fishermen and then signal with tail slaps for the fishermen to throw their nets. This collaboration between man and dolphins has been occurring since at least 1847.
- A prison in the northwestern Brazil started using geese as an extra layer of security in 2011.
- Amethyst was considered one of the most valuable gemstones alongside diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires as. However, an extensive supply was found in Brazil in the 18th century and the price subsequently crashed.
- Escaped slaves in colonial Brazil in the 1600s founded a settlement with a population of at least 11,000 that survived and fought off the Brazilian government for almost 100 years.
- Brazil couldn’t afford to send its athletes to Los Angeles for the 1932 Olympics, so loaded them onto a ship full of coffee and made them sell it on the way.
- Brazil has the biggest Japanese community outside of Japan.
- There is an island off the coast of Brazil that is so greatly infested with venomous snakes (1-5 snakes per square meter) that the Brazilian navy has quarantined it. It is called ‘Snake Island’.
- The eternal flame at Arc de Triomphe in Paris has only been extinguished once and it was by drunken Mexican football fans who urinated in it after the final of 1998 World Cup, when France defeated Brazil.
- Brazil tops the list of countries which exports guns to USA. In 2010, USA imported more than half a million handguns from Brazil.
- A tribe in Brazil uses a hand glove filled with hundreds of bullet ants (most painful stinging ants in the world) as an initiation rite for young men. The boy has to withstand it for up to 10 minutes and must do it 20 times before he is declared a man.
- There are more people of Lebanese descent in Brazil than there are in Lebanon itself.
- Brazil’s public health system provides free sex-change operations because it is recognized as a constitutional right.
- The Bite from the Brazilian wandering spider can cause an erection that lasts for hours and can lead to impotence.
- The myth that piranhas can quickly devour a human alive stems from Theodore Roosevelt’s visit to Brazil, when local fishermen deliberately starved piranhas to show off for the US President.
*PS* this is from at least 6-8 weeks ago. We've had 2 more date nights since this one. :)
