One thing I am not clear on is the difference between a backpacker and a nomad. If someone spends a year traveling around the world and staying in cheap hotels and eating at cheap restaurants, does that make them a nomad?

Also, did anything ever come of the modeling gig in China?

Sandy is not a true Nomad. Sandy is an official couchsurfer (one with an attitude) living in a way that reflect nomadic life only in the fact that he moves from place to place. Nomads have a complex and well-established society based on the family unit staying in close proximity to one another. The family unit travels from place to place together and works as a team. They usually are aware of the next place they are going to, because their movements are cyclical. They build and deconstruct their own dwellings. Movement from place to place is based on food sources, need for grazing land for herd animals, or seasonal. Nomads don't use gyms to keep "in shape", or airplanes.

Having skimmed a few of this person's previous threads, my favorite comedy question is the one where he wants to know who on Fodors can tell him about staying in Montenegro without reporting his presence to the local police. With his self-declared depth of cultural knowledge, I wonder that he couldn't just go ahead and ask one of the thousands of Serb and Roma refugees who live there after fleeing from Kosovo in '99, or one of the thousands of locally displaced people displaced people who survived the riots in 2004 and 7.

I also wonder if, after his visit to Montenegro, he can give us any cultural information of value with regard to the fact that Montenegro is currently used as the main transfer country for the human trafficking of women and girls from the Balkan states and Eastern Europe to the West for the purposes of human sexual exploitation. That might be useful and show some depth of knowledge of the country.

If he offers such information, I'd be happy to check it out (as well as gather any comments) from all of the three men who work in my building who came here from Montenegro after the suffering of the Milosevic period. I'm sure they'd find his attitude about local police hilarious!

Well its been fun but your logic finally gave out. Are you going to close down the thread because you are allowed to? And you felt the need to explain why.... Odd. Just be a nomad and walk away.............................................. .................................................. .................................................. .........

I'm thinking that maybe you need to be sandy's age to survive this forum.

About the short-sightedness and Viagra, well, how could you tell whether it's Viagra before taking it? Is there generic Viagra?

When I'm in NYC and go to a bar, I always need to show my ID -- when it's evident that I'm past 21.

But when I'm in Europe, I've never been been asked to show an ID. Is that the norm there? Because I look old? Because I look like a tourist?

What's the legal drinking age?

I wasn't going to contribute to this any more, but I have to ask - if you have Skype and your mother has Skype how is it expensive? I pay nothing to Skype family and friends around the world,. And even those not on Skype are cheap enough to call using it.

Oh my! Sandy plans to freeload off his hardworking parents for 20-30 years. I bet they are so proud of their baby. Don't we all want our kids to grow up to be bums?

The Viagra is never for the person buying it, is it? lol

You aren't a traveler and couchsurfing will never make you one. You are far too unaccepting of other people and narrow-minded to ever be a traveler.

Sandy, the reason you're seeing all those teenagers in bars across Spain and Italy is not because those countries are so free-spirited about their rules, but because <i>they have different rules.</i> The legal drinking age is 16 in Italy and 18 in most parts of Spain -- hence, teenagers. Different countries have different laws -- as a worldly nomad, I'm sure you understand that.

Point being, the drinking analogy stands. Just as some bars choose not to enforce it, I'm sure some passport officials will overlook your date snafu. Hopefully you'll find an official with similar...math skills.

&quot;While the rule is obviously 21&quot; - the only obvious thing here is how little you know about the world. The legal drinking age may be 21 in your country but it aint in mine (or most other civilised countries).

Good catch, hetismij.

Skype to Skype is indeed free. But he was Skype to landline. But that's very cheap as well.

Sorry -- I meant maybe he was using Skype to landline. But that's cheap also.

Strange how someone who is so dismissive of rules in general, sure can quote from them when it serves his purposes.

He writes, &quot;I am very close to shutting down the thread, so get in your last comments, because they are about to be purged from the system (and I have the righ to do that as well), Section B, Heading 3, Sub-heading 3A, Paragraph I), Sub-paragraph 1i) - When the OP feels the thread has gone astray, and there is no responsible executive nearby to punish transgressors, he has the authority to sideline users taking away (instead of adding) to the energy of the thread.&quot;

I have never met such a big baby in my life. Free spirit my %#%^$!

sandy - It has been over 4 days since your first post. (10/26/2008, 05:17 am). Were you in Norway when you wrote the first post? Are you still in there? Or did you take the advice given here and hightail it out in time?

Now, somehow or other, I kind of like Sandy. He may be a couch surfer, a couch potato or just an internet surfer, but he's certainly brought out the worst in many fodorites.

All these posts slamming one poster continuously. You've given &quot;gang rape&quot; a new meaning.

Schuler - I think you are having an off day. This is from Sandy:

&quot;For your information, it is I who has been having fun at YOUR expense. I am much more in tune to the theatricts of internet forum psychology, and interconnected virtual sociology, than you, or the Victoria walker (Susan?) will ever be.&quot;

He/she has been egging us on. I think he/she is a little bored in Norway.

Hi Cold,

Thanks for your reply. Even after reading the above quote, I'm still not sure if Sandy is real or not. But I do feel he has brought out the worst in sooooo many.

Not you, of course.

I admit Schuler, the dark side is in there somewhere for most of us. But IMO, it is okay to let it show in measured terms when people invite us to, like Sandy.

schuler: You must be kidding. Have you read some of the crap the OP has posted -- not just on this thread?

One thread where he asked about getting a work visa after the fact - he attacked everyone who advised him on the way things have to be done. The rules were made to be broken back then too.

(I guess he wasn't so much of a nomad since he was fairly desperate to get a work visa w/o returning to Canada)

Gang rape? Puh...leese.

Come on schuler. When have you read anything as arrogant and condescending as this?:

&quot;And I've learned my lesson here, next time I have a controversial question, I will ask for the advice of other nomadic spirits on this forum, and suggest tourists, and other conformists to refrain from contributing.&quot;

Anyone whose advice doesn't please sandy is a conformist, a tourist, and jealous. Ick. Triple ick.

I've had quite a few people crashing on my sofa at times, often complete strangers, and a couple of my friends are currently hitching around Germany.

I don't think any of them have been so rude as to despise me and think themselves so superior to me. At least I hope not. If this is the typical 'couchsurfer' attitude it puts me off offering hospitality to others. I can't believe it is though.

Anyhoo - Sandy I do owe you an apology for bringing the word 'bum' into this conversation. I think I was the first person to use it when I said you were 'bumming around' the world. You see, in British English, 'bum' doesn't have the same connotation as it does in American English, and to say that someone is 'bumming around' is not an insult. I bum around a lot at the weekends, the friends in Germany have described themselves as 'bumming round Germany' etc. I'm sorry it gained a nasty meaning in the UK/US mistranslation, but it wasn't intended. It just means 'to meader about fairly aimlessly/to enjoy yourself doing nothing much/to travel in the sort of way tht you are doing. As a verb I didn't connect it to the American noun.

Mind you...perhaps someone with extensive in-depth knowledge of the world in ways that I couldn't even imagine, might have known that?