JohnRoberts said:
Just a few high lights. TJ is the stereotypical "anything goes" kind of place. A place where you can buy prescription drugs without the prescription, etc.
Agreed, it used to be like that some decades ago, today it has become a lot strict, not as much as in the states, but strict, you can no longer buy antibiotics, or some controlled substances without a prescription, its not like in the states where you basically need a prescription for an aspirin (im kidding of course), but its definitely not what it used to be. That being said, its by no means hard to get a prescription, or a fake prescription for that matter, I've never heard of anyone being trialed or going to jail for getting prescription drugs with a fake prescription.
-I vaguely recall lying on my back on a small stage while a stripper was dancing on my face... my friends thought it would be amusing to tie my shoelaces together. I figured out what they were doing down there so disappointed them by not falling, after the dance ended.
I don't know about TJ, but here in Mexico City, strip clups are basically banned now, the allegations were that girls were being sold and forced to basically work as prostitutes or strippers, but let me tell you, I knew a lot of strippers, many of them foreigners like Hungarian, Russian, Venezuelan, and such and besides doing the nasty stuff with them I used to engage in some serious conversations with them, many had children and loved what they did, the one from Venezuela had an economics degree but figured out she was making more money from stripping than from economics, so in my experience, no one was forced.
- My sales rep who was supposed to be driving me around was too wasted to drive, so I ended up driving us from San Diego to LAX on the 405 using the road reflectors to stay in my lane, driving by braille... remarkably I made my flight.
"driving by braile" hahahahahahahahha I laughed so hard, been there, done that.
Let me tell you something I definitely do not envy from the US, the DUI's, there is no DUIs in México, getting caught driving under the influence basically means one of the following things: "how much will you have to bribe the officer to let you go?" or how many "days, usually hours will you have to spend in jail before some one takes you out or bribes someone" the second option just means that you will have to pay more than the first option, but really no record will be left of your arrest (specially if you pay someone not to put in on record). One time, I was very young and was pulled over by a patrol car, I was so drunk that I didn't even notice that I didnt have a tire, somehow I had a flat tire, but kept up going up to a point that there was no tire left, only the rim and I was making a ton of sparks in one of the biggest Mexico city avenues, not only should I have gone to jail for like a year, I could have been accused of "damages to the nation" and charged a substantial fine because my car was basically f**king up all the pavement with my sparking rims. I had to call and wake up my dad to come get me and "pay" the officer so he would let me go, my dad wasn't very happy after that, but I got out. Ahhh the wonders of the 3rd world.
There are some special circumstances in which you are in fact f**ked, for example there's been cases in which some guy was detained and forced to take an alcohol test, and when the police was going to take him to jail, he basically tried to escape, run over two police officers, killed one of them, and ended up crashing into a historical monument. So basically the lesson is this, as long as you do not end up on the news, you are probably fine....
There is a saying here in Mexico "everything can be solved with money", sad, but true... People who commit a crime and end up in prison is mostly because they are poor, of course, there are some exceptions, again, if you are on the news, less chances you'll get out, but even still, If you have enough money, you will get out no matter what.
You must have heard this one, there is a high rank military general from Mexico called "Salvador Cienfuegos" the US prosecuted him, extradited him, and was meant to be judged in a US court for drug traffic and a whole other stuff, I don't know what the mexican goverment made but basically convinced the US to return him back to Mexico so that he was judged over here, the international relations chancellor from mexico said in a public press conference televised in every channel "It would be suicide not to judge General Cienfuegos for what he did", two months later, all charges were dropped, Cienfuegos is free, never judged and the goverment never tried to explain the reasons why they let him go, they just covered it up with some BS, and no one ever mentioned his name again, what everyone thinks is that Cienfuegos must have known some dirty secrets from the goverment, so they just let him go, no question asked, no explanations necessary.
Another example is Lozoya, an ex goverment official, he was arrested somewere around the world, he got extradited to Mexico, and made a deal to reveal all the dirty secrets in exchange for immunity, he said things about the ex-president, pollitical officials, governors, high value CEOs, etc... it was a scandal, do you know how many of the people he revealed have been charged of anything? ZERO. Yeap, thats my country.
See, thats what makes the difference between developed and "developing" countries, most americans think we live with sombreros, sleeping under a cactus in a dirty town, that is a complete lie, we have a great economy, many scientists, a lot of very capable people, a lot of natural resources, we are the number one exporter of silver in the world, free education (the best universities here are free) a lot of manufacturing happens here, the thing is that we just have an extremely sh*tty goverment, and that makes the whole difference, the goverment is not only the president, it goes all the way down to every branch of goverment, you guys think you have a bad goverment, man you can sue the president in the us!, Monica Lewinsky did it and won!, Nixon was found guilty of corruption let say, and he resigned, man! that is impossible here, if Nixon would've been the president of Mexico he would just have to say "Yeah, so?", or like our current president likes to say to justify everything wrong "I have different data", "hey Mr. President but according to this goverment institution it says that you spent three times what you said you would spend in this project", his answer "that is a lie to undermine my goverment, I have different data", thats it! A pollitical trial like you did with Trump? that has NEVER and will NEVER happen here.
Let me tell you something funny, here in Mexico if you want to study a Master's degree or PhD (on anything but an MBA), the goverment will pay you, if you want to study abroad, they will also pay for your tuition, if you study here in Mexico the best universities are free but they will still pay you a monthly fee. Thats great right? I know it because I recieve goverment funding for studying my PhD in engineering. Well at first I thought this was something great, the goverment is investing on scientific research so they need doctors and such, so why are we not making most of our own technollogy? ahhhh here is the deal, the Mexican goverment realized its easier to give some PhD student some 700 USD a month rather than spending millions on research projects, that way you can say "We now have 5000 more PhDs than the year before" when in fact they should be saying "Now we have 5000 more UNEMPLOYED PhDs than the year before" because once you become a doctor, f**k you, you are on your own, its all about statistics. So where are the best Mexican scientists ? I'll tell you where NOT IN MEXICO, thats right, when I went to The Ohio State University for 6 months as a visiting scholar during my Master's degree I was offered to study my PhD over there, for many reasons I declined but I understood why most of the best minds in Mexico are not in Mexico.
I can give you many examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%BAl_Rojas,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Sandoval_Vallarta
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/author/37269843200
The one in the second link was actually Richard Feynmann's mentor! and A colleague of the same University I attend and teach here in Mexico.
The classic Mexican dishes served at one private party were nothing like the Tex-Mex fast food that Americans ASSume is the extent of Mexican fare.
Amen to that!
