ROMA 31/3 -- the Italy Trip Day 1

I've planned this trip for more than a month. I've dreamed to go to Italy for more than 10 years. Here I come and here I realize my dream!!! Fly To Italy!!

Actually, this 10-day trip was my first couch surfing experience. I don't want spend any money on accommodation. It's too costly if you travel more than five days. So, I started to find hosts of kindness about one month before the trip. You know, it's the slowest way to kill a person when you search a couch in a certain city and the search engine gives you 100+ results back, you have to click those links one by one, read their profiles, and write them your "sincere" requests under one condition--you have no idea how many is enough for you to find one. Only thing could I do was to spend more than one week to deal with these nasty stuff, especially I was a newbie and a god damn MALE.

Finally, I found 5 days of free couch out of 9 nights.


After the first class in the morning to 10am, I rushed to the Chopina airport right away, skipped the sucky laser class at noon, and reached Roma Fiumicino airport at 14:40.  


The first thought outside the airport was...it's as dirty as Taiwan, it's not the Italy, the European country, that I imagined, totally. Second thought, when I saw the coke in the shop, was...FxCK, €2.5 (10pln, NTD$107) for 500ml Coke. 


Roma is the capital of Italy. It has the most Roman style buildings and ruins because of the fact that it was also the capital of the Roman Kingdom (753 BC–509 BC), the Roman Republic (509 BC–27 BC), the Roman Empire(27 BC–AD 476.)

Walking from the main station, Roma Termini, heading north, here I came to the Piazza della Repubblica featured a big fountain, Fontana della Naiadi, in memory of the unification of Italy in 1870, and the Santa Maria degli Angeli. I didn't care about the church or cathedral things at all, but I found one interesting thing inside this cathedral. There was a Galileo statue in the cathedral which was designed by the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, Tsung Dao Lee 李政道.

In our science history teaching, I learned that he is the first Nobel Prize winner in my country, Republic of China, known as Taiwan. I expected words like Taiwan and Taiwanese would be written. But....obviously not. 
The fact: 

Tsung-Dao (T.D.) Lee

Citizenship	Republic of China United States (1962–)

 1950年代，白色恐怖時期，李政道在台灣的母親張明璋女士和二哥李崇道(李崇道畢業於廣西大學農學院，曾任中興大學校長、農委會主委)、二嫂許淑英，因在家裡留宿一位舊時廣西大學同學，以「掩護匪諜」罪名入獄。張明璋女士去世後，李政道將母親骨灰帶回蘇州安葬。

Obviously, I was misled by the stupid science history education in Taiwan.


Then I went to Chiesa di Santa Maria della Vittoria,

the Piazza Barberini, where the Fontana del Toritone, and Fontana della Api stand, 

the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica (didn't go in),

the Santa Andrea al Quirmale,

the Palazzo del Quirinale,

last but the best, the Fontana di Trevi 許願池.

My first meal in Italy was at a restaurant next to the Trevi fountain. Eating outside the restaurant is totally the European style!! I enjoyed it a lot, the breeze, the people (hot girls of course), and the music. I only ordered a famous Italian dish, fresh ham with Mozzarella, one kind of cheese, or formaggio in Italian, because food here was of course fxcking expensive. It was €7.50, 30pln, NTD$323, and it was probably the cheapest.

After dinner, I went to the Piazza di Spagna, famous of a scene in the movie "Roman holiday", featuring Audrey Hepburn. This is Roma!!

22:00, the time that I had to meet my first couch host, an English. He lives around the cathedral Santa Giovani, teaching English in this city. He was probably the first English I met in my life, his English was so fast that I didn't know what to say to him right away in the conversation coz I needed time to process his words. He changed his mind to let me stay more than one night, which was the original agreement on CouchSurfing website because he said that I looked like a trustworthy person. LUCKY!!