I also saw a little of the DR in Amsterdam. Amsterdam, NY that is. I was looking for an open gas station at about 3 AM a couple of years ago and the only guy on the street happened to be from the DR. My home town, 175 miles from NY City, sister city of Amsterdam in The Netherlands now has Dominican residents to go along with a large (an I mean large) population from Puerto Rico. I have lived here long enough to recognize he was Dominican and we chatted about that. (Why do these people go to such a horrible place? It is really bad there now. I had an excuse. I was visiting my mother.)