The Weekend Vigilante

Hello from sunny Santo Domingo,

TDV Manager, Michael Bach and I have been on a whirlwind tour from Vancouver to LA and are now in the Dominican Republic (DR) checking on the progress of many Dollar Vigilante clients’ residency and passport applications (see more about our DR passport services here) .

I was interested to get Michael’s take on our trip. While he hails from Denmark he has lived in Acapulco for more than a decade without once leaving its sunny shores. The results are in: He liked Vancouver, he loves Santo Domingo and he absolutely hated LA.

The differences between LA and Santo Domingo were stark.

In Los Angeles, you are not allowed to do anything, anywhere, except within the “approved” hours.  It was very hard for Mike to get accustomed to this.  We were checking out our hotel restaurant and he looked at the hours.  It was open for breakfast from 8am-10:30am on Monday to Friday and 8am-11:00am on Saturday, 8am-12pm on Sunday… it listed the same types of hours for lunch and dinner. There were so many hours and days listed that we actually had a hard time figuring out if and when we could eat.  We then sat down and Mike ordered some eggs.  The waiter replied, “Sorry, breakfast is finished, it is now lunch”.  We asked him when breakfast ended because it was hard to make sense of all the hours and he said “Five minutes ago”.  Mike sat with a blank stare, honestly confused and asked, “But, where did the eggs go?”

He found out that everything has explicit times and regulations in the land of the free. Even nightclubs suffer from this same regimentation where there is a constant race to get a few drinks before they yell out “last call” and then throw everybody out into the street at the same time.

The funniest was when we decided to go to a strip club. We asked the taxi driver where to go and he asked us what “kind” of strip club we wanted. We both looked befuddled. He then explained, if you want the girls to take off their clothes, there is no alcohol. If you want to drink, then they won’t take off their clothes.  Being from Acapulco the only difference between strip clubs is whether you want the one with midgets on roller skates or the one where they haul you on stage to participate. We sat bewildered.  I said to Mike that there was no point in going to a strip club if the girls didn’t strip, so we chose one where they strip but have no alcohol.  As we entered and were ID’ed for the 10th time that night, we were told a list of rules and were told that we have to buy a minimum of $20 worth of drinks to enter.  I asked them how we were going to manage that with non-alcoholic drinks.  They stated that we could buy 6 bottles of water.  Mike and I left before she even finished her sentence.

In Santo Domingo, you can do what you want when you want.  Would you like eggs in the afternoon?  No problem.  And the bars don’t close until the last person leaves… as ANY bar would do if they were allowed.  As Mike and I sat at dinner last night at around midnight before choosing which all night casino or club to go to he sank back in his seat and sighed contentedly… “Ah, it’s so good to do what we want to do again.”

As we walked into a happening discotheque soon after he made the comment, “Look, everyone is happy and smiling!”  That was something you didn’t see much of in LA.  Everyone seemed depressed… and it makes sense, we’d be depressed if we lived there too.

SOME SANTO DOMINGO EXPERIENCES

It has been very enjoyable here.  The Melia Santo Domingo hotel is quite nice, the internet is fast and they’ve recently updated their rooms.  Here is the view from my suite this evening.

If you visit Santo Domingo to apply for residency/passport, I recommend this hotel.  It is about $120/night.  And, if you are looking for an elegant and amazing restaurant, go to nearby Vesuvio.  We had a world class gourmet meal for about $75 for two.

VISIT THE LOCAL JAIL

As seems to be a recurring theme, I visited one of the police stations/jails here in Santo Domingo.  No, I didn’t get in trouble like when I was handcuffed and roughed up by costumed thugs in Phoenix or when I had to bail my driver out of jail in Tepic, Mexico.  This time I had just lost one of my residency documents and in order to get a new one I had to go to the police station and file a report.

The people in the station were nice enough.  The mood was jovial as I sat around with the Sheriff and his buddies and we drank some strange alcoholic drink I’ve never heard of while we waited for the secretary to type up my report.

Santo Domingo Sheriff and Friends

The most interesting part was the “interrogation chair” and the jail.  This is where you sit while they question you:

And if they don’t like your answers, then you’ll end up in here (you can see the bars inside):

There was actually one “prisoner” in there at the time… he did not look too happy.

The secretary typed up my report quite quickly… I was actually a bit sad that she did it so quick as I was having a great time hanging out and drinking with the Sheriff.  But, all good things come to an end.  As I was about to walk off, the secretary, who by the way was very cute, asked me for my phone.  I gave it to her, somewhat confused.  She then typed in a phone number and handed it back to me.  I looked at her and asked, “Oh, is this the police station number if I need anything more?”

She smiled and replied, “No, that’s my number.  Call me.”

You see, everything down in Latin America is so much better.  I never expected my visit to the police station to be so enjoyable, but down here, everything is.

Speaking of the women, by the way, the amount of beautiful girls here is mind boggling.  And, for the ladies, probably the smoothest guys in the world are from the DR.  The last time I came here with my girlfriend I thought I was in serious risk of losing her to some latin lover on many occassions.  If you are looking for romance, come to the Dominican Republic.

NEW TDV MANAGING EDITOR ANNOUNCEMENT

I’m very pleased to announce that the founder and director of the Mises Institute of Canada has agreed to come onboard with us at TDV in the role of editor and writer.  His name is Redmond Weissenberger and you’ll be hearing a lot more from him in the future.  Amongst other things he’ll also be writing a monthly Austrian economics focused column in the TDV newsletter.

IN CLOSING

That’s all for this week.  I’ll be in the Bahamas for the Global Financial Summit next week and then back in Acapulco for a few days before heading to the California Investment Conference in Palm Springs.  Have a great weekend!

The Dollar Vigilante is a free-market financial newsletter focused on covering all aspects of the ongoing financial collapse. The newsletter has news, information and analysis on investments for safety and for profit during the collapse including investments in gold, silver, energy and agriculture commodities and publicly traded stocks. As well, the newsletter covers other aspects including expatriation, both financially and physically and news and info on health, safety and other ways to survive the coming collapse of the US Dollar safely and comfortably. You can sign up to receive our FREE monthly newsletter, our Basic Newsletter ($15/month) or our Full Newsletter ($25/month) with specific stock recommendations and updates at our Subscriptions page on our website at DollarVigilante.com.

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