Visa Update, Expat Stories Coffee Time LIVE- LIVE from Colombia. 21 August 2022

Town, a cup of coffee, then I'll go. Keeping town tomorrow, cause you no more saw. Coffee, then I'll go, get to do. Saw the heartaches I caused you. Loving you, I know. Columbia, and as usual, the weather's been gorgeous. Okay, I got a lot to go over today. It's going to be a busy day. The visa thing, which people are going to be very interested in, probably going to be in about 15 minutes or so. There's a few things that I actually need to explain leading up to it. Make sure everything's in context. First of all, this is a 100,000 peso note. Now, I lived here, I'd been coming here and lived here for four or five years before I ever saw my first one. I went to the ATM the other day, and I had to withdraw for my rent. And every single bill for my rent is a 100,000 peso note. The problem with these is if you take pretty much anywhere except maybe a big chain, they're not going to cash it for you because they're just not that common. So why did I get this out of the ATM when I hadn't seen them for years? Inflation anyone? It's starting to steamroll a little bit. Now, I have to say with the exchange rate issue, I feel almost guilty because I'm immune to it. But this is telling that they're starting to crank these things out where you almost could never get one before. Okay. Rob, good morning from Medellin. I'll play a little clip here in a second he sent me. Dennis, hi. How you doing? Yuka. Thank you, Yuka, as always. I really appreciate it. And Gerald, I got your money for the Skype call. We'll get that set up. You just sent it. Ben Lake, you fake namer, you. Good morning, live from Armenia. How you doing? Not usually live, right? John, hello from Parida. It's not Pereira. It's Parida. Don, good morning from Colorado. How you doing? 100K bills impossible to use in the streets. Exactly. Seven years ago, it was the same with the 50K. Good point. Yeah, I was just shocked. I had to take out two withdrawals. One was for my rent, and the other is for cash for the month. And both of them were 100K withdrawals. I was just blown away. Mr. Fake name G212, hola from Fort Lauderdale. How you doing? Okay, Rob sent me this. It's less than two minutes. Here we go. That, by the way, is a famous nightclub in Medellin. It's not a theater. Oh man, we are in a restaurant called Mondongos. Look at all this food. Yummy, yummy, yummy. My tummy, tummy, tummy. Yummy. Here in Medellin, Colombia. Oh man, you got to love those Colombian bathrooms. You walk into the bathroom. It's for both men and women. So you have a place where you can wash your hands. And then this says ladies room here, ladies room here, ladies room here. And there's the urinal. So you can be taking a piss right there. And the ladies are walking in and out of the bathroom. And just washing their hands and stuff. Yeah, that was pretty funny. I've never seen that before, but I'm not surprised. Okay, there's a Chilean company that is opening a Colombian headquarters right here in Calarca. Now, if you don't know, you've got Armenia. And then right across on the other side of the river, you've got Calarca. They're not the same city, but they're almost the same city. But they have their own mayor and things like that. And because of the mayor of Armenia, this is really on the radar for companies throughout the world as a good place to locate. And there's been a number of call centers recently. As a matter of fact, a couple of weeks ago, I had Luz on here, introduced you to her. And she's a medical translator, which she does online. So it's something that's really growing in this area. Now, why do I mention this thing in Calarca? Well, there's a reason for it. It's an example of something that I think is pretty cool. Now, this headquarters, when they first open, they're going to employ 50 people. They'll go up to a maximum of 400 people. But here's the cool part about it. This is something that's been happening here in Armenia. Some of the, they'll have in-person, you go to work and do your work, but they're going to have some remote openings. And these remote openings, a certain percentage of them are going to be reserved for people that live out in the countryside. Now, you got one of two things if you live in the country. Either you're very, very wealthy, which is somewhat required, unless you're very poor, and you never get anywhere except on your little plot of land and the food that you grow. It's almost impossible to do commuting. It's not almost impossible, but it's very problematic. So you'll find people that live out in the country that are basically living off the land and are very poor, or you're going to find people that are very wealthy or wealthy enough to own a car and certain level of security and all the things that go along with that. So those remote spots for people out in the country, it's really kind of a game changer because it will provide them with employment that they could never get otherwise. Now you say, well, how are they going to have internet? Well, Condio has basically wired almost the entire department, there's still some left, with internet. So pretty much everybody can get internet. I mean, Luz's property, that little farm that I talked to you about a few weeks ago, that's wired for internet. So, you know, they prepared for this with the infrastructure, and it's really a game changer for people and it's happening more and more. So it's pretty cool. Very happy to see it. All right. Now, got to quit saying um. I'm going to, this is a Petro mention, because I'm asked constantly, what do I see with that? So there is a proposal. So I'm going to explain that, and then I'll get to how it can affect you. He's proposing an increase in the minimum salary. Now, the minimum salary, you need to understand, it's not really a minimum wage. It's something other than that. It can mean, you can't pay people any less than that. It's not an average wage, it's a minimum. But what it truly is, is a foundation that all fees and penalties are based on. So you might break some traffic law, and the penalty or the fee, the fine for that, might be three times a minimum salary. I believe that to own property to get your permanent residency, the property visa, at least one of them, I think, is 650 times the minimum salary. I may not have that right. But as an example, you get the point. So that's really the foundation. But here's the thing. Because of what it is, it's not unusual every year or so to have a cost of living type of addition to it. So since inflation's running somewhere this, you know, by the time this goes in, maybe about a year, you'd be looking at a lot more than usual, maybe nine or 10%, on average. But Petro, he's playing the socialist game here. And this is, it's a little unnerving. He's proposing it as a big benefit for the people, and he wants it to be 20% to 25% increase. Now, the 20% to 25% increase does not reflect inflation. What it reflects is politics. Because he's painting the picture as, I'm going to bet for you, the people, and I'm going to make sure that you're making more money, and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And what it really is, is it's a money grab. Because massive amount of transactions that the government does, registrations for your car or licensing penalties or visa costs and all of the things that they can make money from, because they're all based on this, it's all going to go up. And it's not going to go up as per inflation. It's going to go up considerably more, at least double, so that there's a lot more money in the government to work with. One of the things I've loved about Colombia is it's not a tax-heavy country, and they operate on a shoestring budget. Well, if you want to have socialist programs, you need to find money somewhere. And so what bothers me is it's one of those shell games. It's painting a picture as being one thing for the people, when in reality, it's just to fund politics. And so that really, really annoys me, and it's very concerning. Now, understand it's only a proposal. I have no idea how far this is going to go. But it's framed in such a way, you know how politics work, in such a way that if you're against it, then maybe you're going to alienate some voters. And I looked, I can't see anybody that's really saying it for what it is. The increase in minimum salary as it affects people is really a small portion of what's going on here. So there's that. George, George, George, there you are. Thank you, thank you very much, George, I appreciate it. And yeah, good morning from Northern California. Speaking of commie. Okay. All right. So that will mean that the minimum to enter Columbia on a retirement visa, that you have to have the income you have to have every month could go up as much as 20 to 25%. Now, the good news is, it still really won't affect much of anybody. And as a matter of fact, you know, with the exchange rate and all that, that's not really a concern for you. But it will increase that. That does increase every year or so anyway, based on inflation. But here we've got something else. Victor, Victor, thank you very much. I appreciate it. How you doing? Enjoying my quick two-week visit to my house in Montezalas. I thought you were coming in November. I mean, September. I have to go back and look. All right. So you have to make a quick run back to Montezalas, say hello. We've got visa. So what's going on with visa? What's the change? There's no change with the Colombian government. And this is something misunderstood. I've got a number of messages on this. I've got panic. There's nothing to panic about. It's not that big a deal. We are losing a convenience. But it's not that hard to get around it. The change is with the American embassy. So what does this mean? Okay. In the past, if you had, you were coming for your retirement visa, all you needed was your passport, a passport photo, a print off of your social security benefits letter, which you can do right off the internet from anywhere, and the money for the transaction for the visa. And what would happen, at least with my people, they would, I would go to PRADA and we present all that information. She'd fill all the forms out. And she has somebody that lives in Bogota. And so she would courier the information to the person in Bogota. They would make an appointment at the American embassy. They would go in with that letter of benefits. And the embassy would verify and apostille certify that benefit. They would do the translation and then they would take it to the Colombian consulate for the visa. So you were pretty much hands off. In a month you had everything back, everything was done. For whatever reason, I have no idea why, but the American embassy has decided to stop providing that service. And it was a paid service. So they were making money doing it. I don't get why. It makes no sense. But it doesn't matter. They've stopped doing it. So now you have to have that document apostilled. So what do you do if you're here and you're going for a new visa? Well, there's companies in the United States that will do it. They will accept a PDF file of the apostille. So there's that. So that's a plus. I just found that out I think yesterday or the day before. So that's good. Or if you've got somebody back home, you can, you know, send them the benefits letter in an e-mail. They can print it off. They can carry it to the secretary of state office, the nearest one to them. And it's usually in a local city government office. And they can do the apostille. And then they can do a nice clean PDF file e-mail back to you. So you can do it that way. They can send you the original by DHL. I strongly suggest DHL. See, the interesting thing here is when I was living in the United States, my last choice was DHL. They really sucked. Here, the one that really sucks tends to be FedEx. And DHL is the most consistent. I've never lost anything to them. FedEx, I swear every time something comes to FedEx, it gets lost and I have to have it done again. They operate better in Columbia. I don't know why. So you want to do the DHL. It will cost you probably $40 or so to send the original. But like I said, they are accepting or at least, you know, my visa agent said she can take care of it with a PDF file. But it will now have to be apostille and you are going to have to take care of that. Visa agent really can't do that. Everything else goes the same. So when you come in, before you just provided the letter of benefit. Now you have to provide the letter of benefit with an apostille. They'll still take care of the translations and still handle that. Now, you may have a visa agent who will vary in that somehow. But now you also need a criminal record check and psychological tests for your retirement visa. As of now, that is not true. I don't know where you're getting that from. We're in the process, in the middle right now of processing one and it's not required. So I don't know. There's a lot of rumors out there. And I don't tell you unless I find out for sure from the horse's mouth. So I'm telling you what the American Embassy has stopped doing. As a matter of fact, if you call up that page at the Bogota American Embassy, it goes to a 404 error where they've actually pulled the page down for the apostille. $1,000 bet. It starts in October. I'm not going to bet, but I don't believe it. I would have heard something by now. But we will see. Other countries do require these things. So I guess it wouldn't be horribly surprising to me. But I can't upload the new resolution. It's in a PDF format. It's absolutely clear. I know what I'm talking about. Yeah, sometimes you make mistakes. But send it to me in an email. I'll send it to my people and I'll see. What happens very often is there will be proposals that people will take as being factual, but they're not. So I'm leaving room for you could be right. I don't know. But I'm surprised I haven't heard anything yet, because if it was going to take into effect in October, then the word should have been out for a while. But I don't know. We'll see. If you do need it, it's not that huge a deal. I actually, for Ecuador, they told me what to have when I got to Ecuador. When I went to Ecuador, they said that they wanted a county sheriff of where I last lived, a police report, and they wanted a state report. They wanted a state report. No, I'm sorry. They wanted an FBI report. So they wanted an FBI report and they wanted a county report. So I came to Ecuador with those things. Certified and apostilled. Notarized and apostilled. When I went to the visa office, this was part of the runaround, they said, well, you need the state police report. And I said, but the state police report is the FBI report. They didn't care. They got to have it. So I had to go through, get fingerprints, and it was a lot of running around because you can't just get fingerprints. You have to go through the Ecuador version of the FBI, their criminal division, and make appointments. And I actually had to go back twice because the appointment wasn't working. So I got the fingerprints and sent off for it. I had to pay. That whole thing cost me about $250. I got it back and went back into the immigration in Ecuador with the FBI and state, which were identical, and the county. So they took the county. They said, we don't need that. They took the state. They handed it back to me. We don't need that. I just spent $250 on it. And they accepted the FBI. And then they proceeded to send me off for some other things. It cost me well over $2,000 in six months to do something that should have taken about three weeks. So I was a little bitter over all of that. But that was one of the situations. But it's an example. It's not surprising that they might want to get an FBI report. Also, in the past, where I know it came up on some business visas, the Bogota embassy could produce an FBI report for you and certify it. And, you know, maybe that's a service they're no longer doing also. But it wasn't needed for the retirement visa. Lauren, you are wrong. New law is in the email to you. I'll check it out. You know, like I said, you could be right. I could be wrong. It wouldn't be the first time I was wrong. You shocked me because I haven't heard anything. And I'm constantly looking for these things. And on this recent thing, I was just scrubbing all the new things. I didn't come across it. You would think I would have seen it. But I'm seriously considering leaving if these laws go through. I see Petro changing things for the worst. He could. But I honestly wouldn't panic yet because you're seeing changes everywhere. And, well, I mean, you do what you want to do. Personally, I'm not panicking over this stuff. I'm keeping my eye on it. It does concern me. But I also heard they're trying to keep out PTSD people. I don't know. Maybe. I don't know. I guess it's something we'll have to look into. And Mr. Nombre, if I read it and you're right next week, I'll come back and say, oh, I'm terribly sorry. I'm kind of gun shy on these things because I'm constantly told certain things about changes in the law. And they're almost never, by the time it all comes, you know, by the time I get to the bottom of it, not true. So I'm gun shy on these things. They could always turn out to be true. But a lot of things are misunderstood in the way the government operates and how they make proposals and the stages that go through. At some point somebody will grab them out and say, ah, see what we have. So we'll see. But, again, if that's the case, it's not going to be that big a deal. But it will be one more step. And if it's before you come, it's pretty much a piece of cake. And I would guess that if you get your first visa under, you know, some new law, they have grandfathering here too. But if you get your first visa and it's with that, when you get time for your second visa and you've been living here, I doubt that it's going to apply because you haven't been back there. You've been here. So I don't know. We'll see. I hate to speculate any more than that. Okay. So I ask checking things here. Okay. I ask, if you would, if you could write me a few paragraphs or a page or so of your expat experience. And I got two of them in. And so let me read that for you. Government services are deteriorating worldwide because they learned that we would tolerate it. Dan, I think there's some truth to what you're saying. I'm looking forward to your apology next week. Well, it's not that big a deal. I make mistakes. I confess to them when I do. And I've caught you messing up too, but you don't have a channel that I can gloat over. So, all right. We'll see. PTSD. How would they know if you have PTSD when evaluation tests won't show that? Do they make people submit their U.S. medical records? I wouldn't get too far ahead of yourselves on this stuff, honestly, and start panicking over something we don't know. Everything is speculation to a certain point. It's all good. I don't know. We'll see. All right. I'm going to read this letter. A few years ago, I made a trip to Medellin. I had visited Armenia, Cali, and Cartagena in Colombia, but this was my first visit to Medellin. I'd heard that it was nice but also slightly more expensive than other parts of Colombia. One of the activities I had planned for my trip was to meet up with a group of people that I had met in a virtual language exchange. There was going to be about seven or eight of us, and the plan was to take a walk around the Poblado, El Poblado neighborhood, then have dinner at a nearby restaurant. I had told my friends that I really wanted to treat them to dinner since they'd been so kind to help me with my Spanish and orient my first visit to Medellin. I thought it was the least I could do. Plus, I knew my friends were not well off financially, and meals are not expensive in Colombia. I ended up arriving on time for our meeting, but as common in Colombia, I had to wait a bit for and with my friends. They trickled in little by little, with the last one arriving about 40 minutes or so from our agreed upon meeting time. Each had interesting reasons for arriving late. It's always traffic. There ended up being eight of us all together. Anyway, it was fun to meet with a group of locals and be able to pick their brains about life in Colombia and Medellin more specifically. They were from different areas of the city, like Bejo or Belo in the north, Itagwe in the far south. There was one lady from Venezuela, another lady who had lived in the U.S. for several years and spoke very good English. But she joined the group because she was afraid she would lose her English if she didn't continue to use it. After about a 45-minute stroll, we made it to the restaurant. El Poblado is known to be a nice, somewhat pricey area of Medellin, and the restaurant was very cool inside with modern and quirky decorations and a hip vibe. The menu was extensive. It included pictures of several delicious-looking meals. Don't they always? I find that kind of annoying because they're rarely what they show. But anyway, I don't remember noticing the prices, but I think I brought the equivalent of about 200 U.S. in Colombian pesos to pay for everyone's dinner. The meal went well. The food ended up being great. We each ordered something different and shared it so we could taste a variety of flavors. Almost everyone also ordered alcoholic drinks. We had fun conversations and switched between languages. I learned quite a few new words and phrases in Spanish. When the evening was coming to a close, a waiter brought the bill, and I made sure it came to me. When I looked at it, I think all the color drained from my face. Not used to looking at the large numbers, and at the time it had a 3,200-to-1 exchange rate dollar-to-peso. I misread the total, and I thought it said something like 3 million pesos. At the time, that would have been around 900 U.S. dollars. Now, of course, I was still thinking with a U.S. mentality, and a $900 bill for eight people in a nice restaurant was completely plausible. I had not brought my credit card. I think the kind lady sitting next to me must have detected my unease because after a bit she leaned over and asked me if I was okay. I must have looked up at her sheepishly and told her I didn't think I brought enough money to cover the dinner. I felt a wave of humiliation running through me. I guess I was thinking, oh, my God, I invited these people to dinner, and I can't pay. They're going to think I'm a scammer. Of course, I would also be leaving a bad impression as a gringo. Don't worry about that. It happens all the time. I was feeling a little bit sick to my stomach. The lady next to me scanned the bill and verified the items were all listed correctly and nothing extra had been added. She told me that everything looked correct, and she asked if I knew that the tip or servicio had already been included. She then said that with the tip included, the total bill was only 300,000 pesos. That was about 90 U.S. dollars. At first, I was a little shocked, and then I was completely relieved. I guess not only had I misread the bill, but I also would not have guessed that a meal and drinks for eight people plus a tip could be so inexpensive. It just did not compute in my mind initially. That ended up coming to about $12 U.S. per person. Unbelievable. Once the shock had worn off, my heart rate returned to normal. I admitted to my friends what I had been through, and we shared a great laugh. The experience ended up being one more example of why I love Columbia. Interesting story. I could kind of relate. Something similar to happened to me once. I think the state deposit wants to avoid any potential liability for lying expats. A person could easily doctor a benefits letter. I don't know. It hasn't been an issue in the past. Why would it be an issue going forward? Again, it's just speculation. What is the title of the PDF? I'll do my homework on this, and next week I will definitely talk about it. Because the Thai government asked them to verify the income, and they refused to do so. Yeah, well, the embassy has been verifying it. So I don't know. Section 11 clearly says, yeah. All right. I'm going to look it over. We'll talk about it next week. Peru U.S. Embassy has been doing a similar service as the Columbia U.S. I bet they stopped doing it as well. Yeah, it's a State Department thing. Yeah, it's unfortunate because one of the services that they've had forever is a PAS deal. But in Ecuador, you couldn't get it done through them. I don't know why. It would have been nice if you could have. But in Ecuador, it was hard. I mean, really, you really only had one embassy to go to. They have a guy that would come around every few months to Cuenca, for example, and do embassy work. But then he stopped for a long time, and then it was hit or miss after that. I'm not going to talk about it now because I've got to read it, and I've got to verify it. And so I'll talk about it next week. And I will give you your appropriate apology if it's due. Okay. What else do we have? I got another story, but I don't know if you want me to read through. I can read it next week. Are tax dollars at work? Yeah. It was really disappointing because when I first heard about it, it was in the context of Columbia had changed. And then in the second context, I got information that made me think, well, maybe that's not the case. And then I did some verification and found out it was for sure it was the U.S. Embassy. All right. Let's get to this. Asking your questions. Remember, four question marks first, then ask a question. Okay. Now, today, this looks like a million dollars to me. I'm so not used to seeing them that it's like, oh, my God, that's such a huge bill. Expat group in Medellin has a text of the resolution about the visas. Get your own YouTube. Talk about it all day. Well, yeah, you can do that. It would get old. Yeah. We'll definitely talk about it next week either way. It will either be, okay, here's a change that somehow they rapidly got it through, which is possible. I'll see if I can find out what motivated that. Or it will be one of those things where it's in one of those stages and it's not official yet. And if so, I'll talk about that, how that happens. Like I say, 95% of the time, that's what they end up being. But a number of you seem to think that it's, you know, for real, and it could be. So, all right. So, if we got any questions. If you don't, I'm going to take a moment to give a little tribute to, well, here's the thing. I grew up in a high school, we didn't have football. We had soccer. But we did have an Olympic-sized swimming pool. We were big with tennis. Baseball was a big thing. I hated baseball. I mean, it's like it's something you should just take a nap with. I did like tennis. Swimming pool was kind of cool. I hated soccer. You just kind of, it just felt like you're just running back and forth on a hot day. Didn't know anything about football. When I go in the Marine Corps, my first time I went to Asia, I was in Okinawa. And a typhoon hit. And typhoons are pretty wicked. They're like a hurricane, only more so. So I go out to check it out. End up like a flag on a pole hanging on for dear life. But they don't come like instantly. It's a number of days where they get stronger, deadly, and then they start phasing out. As it was phasing out, people were putting together a football game. So I go. And I got dragged in with my friends to play football. I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know the first thing, never watched it on TV. Had no idea. So we were knees, up to the knees in mud. And the football never went anywhere because you couldn't get traction. People were just out there kind of beating into each other. But that was my first introduction to football. When I got back out of the Marine Corps, there was a football game, Buffalo Bills. And I watched it. And from that moment in the, it was 1979, I watched my first football game. And from 79 on, I grew an appreciation for football. These days I don't watch any other football, but I do try to watch the Buffalo Bills. And the Buffalo Bills are unique in football. I learned that. I didn't know because I had no context. Well, now I have context. And I won't talk about it here, but they are a unique team that doesn't exist anywhere else in football. And the people of Canada and upstate New York know and appreciate it. So it's huge there. It's a lot like, I had a friend I used to visit in Pennsylvania that was near State College. And football was, when there was a game, everybody everywhere was on the cars, was on porches, on the houses. I mean, it was a big thing. And that's how it is in upstate New York for the Buffalo Bills. So I will always have this appreciation for the Bills. And the thing is, even when we went a couple decades where they were just in the toilet, you still watch them. You know, Buffalo Bill fans don't move away to other teams generally. So let me do this little tribute because they had a preseason game yesterday, which means absolutely nothing. But it was pretty telling. So let me do this little tribute. If you hate it, send me a message telling me you hate it and don't do that again. It's less than two minutes. It's been quite a journey. We've seen it all. From AFL to AFC. From Jack to Jim to Josh and so many more. Our Bills give everything they have. And they receive even more. This isn't just a team. It's a community. Banded together, we push and we persevere. We've carried each other through good times and tough breaks. At the end of every hit, we rise and fight again. That tenacity, sacrifice, strain, passion is ingrained in Buffalo and in its people. So, after 60 years, I'll still say, where else would you rather be than right here, right now? So there's that. Had to get it out of my system. I won't do that again until I get in the playoffs. Okay. Got any other questions? I know the burning topic. We'll talk about it next week. I will look at it. I will get it translated. I'll do all that. Where was OJ Simpson? People don't hate on him. In Western New York, the OJ thing, and I was one of those people that watched every minute of the trial, found it fascinating. And to this day, I don't know if he's guilty or not, because I honestly don't think the trial established it. And that's pretty objective, because I was never really an OJ fan. He was just before I really wasn't into football. I knew about him. The only way I knew about him was in more of those silly police movies I think he was in, which I never really liked. But I watched that trial because the trial was fascinating. And I never could figure out if there was never anything that convincingly said he was guilty or not guilty. The prosecution made an awful lot of mistakes. So, you know, I don't know. I don't know what to say about that. But in Western New York, people I found are pretty much, they easily can separate the guy who played sports versus some years later who may or may not have been a murderer. You know, there's a recognition for, you know, what his life was, you know, pre-murder incident and post-murder incident. So they can recognize, yeah, he was a great football player, but he was a scumbag murderer, you know. So kind of realistic. I mean, just because, well, that sounds wrong in the phrasing. But, you know, he may have been, you know, the most evil person on earth, but it doesn't change the history, the fact that he did, you know, these things in sports. Have you spoken with Mike Jarvis about his plans to open a cafe? Yeah, he's about to open it. I know he's run into a lot of problems. This last Tuesday, I was going to go down and see him with somebody who just recently moved here, but he couldn't do it, so I had other things to do. But I'll go see him this week, whether he's open or not, and check it out. I think he's a little crazy, but I think it's just, on the other hand, you know, when you're retired, you want to keep yourself busy, and I think it has more to do with that than anything else. Plus, I get the impression he's kind of fallen in love with his little community down there. And, you know, so I think maybe that's his way to, you know, keep in touch. That would be an interesting opportunity for some good conversation. I talk to Mike all the time, or not all the time, but fairly often, and I see him every so often. I like him. He's a really good guy, and I enjoy when I get a chance to visit him. So, yeah, you know, once he has a thing opening, I'll probably do a little video on it. You know, what's this expat doing here in the south of Armenia with this cafe? And it's not just a cafe. He's got a number of food items on the menu, including burgers and things like that. Get the mistakes and do and don't of starting a business as an expat. Yeah, like, well, yeah, from the horse's mouth. Yeah, I'm a little worried about the situation, to be honest with you, but we'll see. I mean, everybody's life is their own, and they can make their own decisions, and, you know, anything I ever say is just my opinion. So, you know, I hope the best for him. All right, we have any questions, or are we over it today? Are we done? Cafe Gringo. Yeah, I didn't even ask him what he's going to call it. I don't know. Where are we at? We done? I think we're done. Last call. Takes a moment. Interesting. I just got a message from YouTube telling me that my stream's current bitrate, which is set for what YouTube, it's set to their parameters, but it's now telling me it's higher than the recommended bitrate, and they think I should basically cut it in half. So YouTube changed its settings? Okay. All right. I said that out loud because some of you might know something about that, and you'll send me a message. All right, we're going to end it here. I thank you guys. I will do my homework. I'll find out about that thing. I wouldn't panic about it. Most countries require the things that we've been discussing today anyway. It's just been really nice here in Columbia that you didn't have to do much of anything. So if it gets stepped up a little, you have to kind of roll with it unless it becomes something outrageous. But if what was mentioned here today is true, does come to pass, I went through a hell of a lot worse in Ecuador, and other countries have similar laws, so keep that in mind. All right. We're going to end it here. I will see you next week with my humble apology, perhaps. Ciao.