I'm looking for a interview subject in Granada!

Hiroshi of Japan

Alright, so this video needs a bit of introduction. I met Hiroshi here in my Spanish class. I read an article about this phenomenon in Japan called "hikikomori" where young Japanese people who can't find work just hole up in their rooms for long periods of time. Just for discussion's sake, I asked Hiroshi about it and, lo and behold, he said he was a "hikikomori" right up until he left for Spain. (The phenomenon affects at most about 1 percent of Japanese people).

So I thought I'd practice using my audio equipment and talk to him about his experience, and he wanted to practice some Spanish. Unfortunately, the audio has a lot of static, and his Spanish is a bit bad, but it was just an experiment. I hope you all enjoy it. I find it fascinating.

The idea, as far as I'm willing to go out on a limb here, is that my documentary could address different responses from student-aged people in countries deeply affected by the economic crisis. In Portugal, recent graduates are leaving their countries to find work elsewhere; in Greece, they're taking to the streets; in Italy, as a not-yet-posted interview revealed, they're starting their own businesses; and in Japan, above, some give up entirely. (And since the audio is pretty bad on the above video, I'm not sure it'll make it into the documentary, but you maybe know where I'm coming from). 

Anyway, tell me what you think. 

Wrapping up

So we're all done with our adventure, finally home after more than a month in Greece, Italy and France. It was a pretty great trip, though at the end there my wallet just clammed up out of anger. So as I try to coax five or so bucks for a tapa in Granada, I thought I'd share some of our photos from France and Cinque Terre, a beautiful area with five villages within walking distance of each other. 

The villages cling to stunning cliffs overlooking the sea, and I particularly enjoyed the pastel colors adorning the houses. One the left is in Manarola, one of the smaller villages. 

What stratigraphy! 

A path between two of the villages was covered in these locks and other things hanging from fences that couples put up a symbol of their love. 

I wonder if a combination lock is like this gesture's version of a prenuptial agreement. 

Waves crashing into a little port. Emma's there for scale.  

There was a landslide in Cinque Terre in October, so you couldn't walk to each of the villages, which was disappointing. We had to take trains to between the villages. 

A beach in Monterosso

Skink!

Just a nice little soccer field at the top of the cliff in Corniglia

Certainly the most beautiful landscape we saw in Italy, including this gorgeous sunset. 

And then we were in France, which was amazing. We spent some quality time in Nice, where we ran into these jesters practicing at a park atop a hill overlooking the city.

Nice is also gearing up for Carnaval, hence ferris wheel.

And we ate just some incredible food in France, including this nice little place in Aix-en-Provence. We used our combined four French words to figure out how to order this, the plate of the day, which included cauliflower, potatoes, carrots and green beans, and, most importantly, a healthy portion of homemade mayonnaise. 

Best. Mayonnaise. Ever. 

It was way different than the fake stuff in the States, light and subtle, creamy like butter. 

And then we hit up this excellent bakery. The dozen-or-so types of bread in Aix seemed crunchy and golden, appearing mighty tasty. This crescent-shaped, chocolate-filled bread was excellent, and we got a weird-looking green baguette (not pictured). We later learned it was dyed with green tea, and it tasted mighty fine.

This city, know as the "pink city" because of all the bricks every was a great way to end out our trip, especially since we had nothing Toulouse.

Marseille (In our opinion, one of the only picturesque spots in the city)

So that was that. It was a hell of a time, and we'll probably return to France (though probably more northerly) this summer. We picked up some knowledge about traveling, so here are some tips.

The first of which is in lyrical form, meant to be sung to the tune of a slow Johnny Cash song:

• First, don't go to Greece in January.
• You think it will be fun, but it's not very
• Think of all the stuff you'll have to carry
• Spend all night on the floor of a ferry
• No one's in Crete, 'cept a guy named Jerry
• It's the gassy coal mine, I'm your canary
• Though it's Christmas, not all that merry,
• Olympia is closed, Athens is scary,
• Avoid it in winter, and in March and February,
• Don't go to Greece in January.
• Second, it's not a vacation; it's an adventure. 
• However, third, traveling takes a lot of work and planning, but you also shouldn't work too hard trying to see things just to see them, we think. Some days, especially for long journeys, it's good just to chill out the whole day and drink it all in rather than rush around to see all the sights.
• Fourth, bring more vitamin-C than you think you'll need.
• Fifth, don't wait too long to do your laundry, and you can do quite a bit in the sink.
• Sixth, when on a ferry or long boat ride, it's good to just continue eating (say, pistachios or sunflower seeds) to fend off sea sickness.
• Seventh, make every meal count. We always plotted four or five restaurants on our maps before leaving the hostel, in case one or two were closed. It's hard to tell if a restaurant is good just by looking at it's menu, but food is really a great way to experience a place.
• Eighth, bring a Swiss army knife. Beachside bottles of wine don't open themselves.

Cool. Thanks for reading, everyone. I'll have more documentary-related content up throughout the semester, so please continue checking in. 

Rome, Napoli, Florence and More-nce!

Our apologies for not posting sooner. We've had issues with Internet connections, travel plans, illness and, above all, laziness.

However, we've kept taking photos and eating food, and we've even taken a few photos while eating food. So below are a few nicer (read: Emma's) photos from our time in Rome, Napoli and Florence -- as well as two new food blogs about a couple of delicious regional pizzas and some amazing gelato.

So we'll start with pizza: I've (Emma) eaten a lot of pizza in the last three and a half years -- delicious pizza, but I have discovered one thing we've been lacking: buffalo mozzarella. If I have my say, we will soon import a herd of italian water buffalo to ABQ. Luckily, we were able to try this our first night in Napoli, before I became bedridden and lost my sense of taste:

It was simple and delicious. Some crushed tomatoes, a few basil leaves, olive oil and that creamy mozzarella di bufala -- that's it. That was pizza Neapolitan style. The restaurant, Di Matteo, was famous and surprisingly cheap -- most all the pizzas under five euros -- and we thoroughly enjoyed it:

And then it was on to Rome! After a long day of filling our mind stomachs at the Vatican museum, we filled our stomach stomachs at the Pizzarium, a "slow food movement" pizza hole in the wall that generally only offers vegetarian pizzas (but not by the slice -- as with many pizza places in Rome, you purchase by the kilo). Our favorite was also the most simple:

It was just tomato sauce and parsley on a thick, crunchy crust, more like thin bread than typical pizza crust. We got the address from this blog, which is much more professional than ours. Check it out next time you're in Rome.

We ended up getting a full kilo of the tasty stuff, including these guys:

From left it's a ricotta pizza, a cauliflower and blue cheese pizza and a spinach and mozzarella pizza. Emma was slightly overpowered by the blue cheese, but I (Pat) thought they were all good. My palate isn't as sophisticated as hers. I also got to wash it all down with an artisan beer from Munich. My kind of place. 

Here are a few other pics from Rome:

The Colosseum, of course. The spires at the bottom there are, I think, Doric columns, but I'm not sure.
I just column like I see 'em.

Palazzo Venezia

Ponte Sant'Angelo over the Tiber River near the Vatican City

The Trevi Fountain. We didn't have any money to throw in, but I think we'll make it back some day anyway. 

This is a Bernini sketch sculpture in the Vatican Museum. Though the Vatican Museum didn't have any major marble works by the Italian master, we saw(and fell in love with) quite a few at the Galleria Borghese.

After that, it was on to Florence, the supposed birthplace of gelato, and let me tell you: There was gelottafit.

Since Florence has a reputation for gelato, a lot of places are trying to milk that cash cow, and then turn it into really crappy gelato. So, for all you travelers, here are a few tips to make sure you're eating the real thing (some from personal observation, some from the blog we mentioned earlier) :

• If the gelato is towering out of the cases, it's probably not good. Gelato should generally be less light and fluffy than ice cream. 
• If the pistachio and mint flavors are bright green, avoid the place, and the same goes if the banana is bright yellow. This probably indicates that the gelato was made with additives and artificial flavors.
• If it has a bubblegum flavor, burn the place to the ground. Or just don't go there.
• And, also generally, if the place keeps lids on the gelato it's a good sign. Some places put way too much effort into the display, but good, authentic gelato places know that letting it air out can weaken the flavor.
• If the place advertises "produzione propia," it means that they make their gelato on the premises so it's probably better. 
• It should have an ingredient list prominently displayed, and said list should not have a lot of ingredients starting with "E," codes for products that are generally artificial.

So we ate gelato after almost every meal, and all was merry. The pictures above were from a place right by the Ponte Vecchio, Florence's most famous bridge.

And here are some other nice shots from Florence:

A view from the Boboli Gardens

The Duomo! 

The bronze doors of the baptistry known as the Gates of Paradise.

So here's the plan now. We're spending our last night in Italy tonight in the incredibly beautiful Cinque Terre. We spent the day roaming between those villages, and will have those photos up (if you're lucky!) soon. Tomorrow we're off to France for a few days and then back to Spain.

As for my journalism stuff, I hope to have at least one video up here in the near future, and perhaps two. I'm just having some audio problems, though they're not insurmountable.

Occupy Vatican

On our first day in Rome we happened on an "occupy" protest in front of the Vatican, and things got a bit intense near the end. At one point, a plain-clothes police officer slapped my camera out of my face and shoved me into the crowd of protesters. I managed to get a shot just a moment before he struck:

The protest started innocently enough, with around 30 protesters chanting and setting down tents in front of the Vatican. However, when they started to move their tents to a different part of the plaza, Italian police -- many of them in civilian clothing-- started pushing the protesters. 

 This guy climbed the Christmas tree in the middle of the plaza.

 He was subsequently arrested.

 Since it's the Vatican, they had a Pope blessing all the protesters. That's a tarot card book he has in his hand.

 So the police officer at the top of this page threw me into a crowd of 30 protesters, all of whom had, at that point, been protesting peacefully. Later, several protesters jumped barriers in front of the Christmas tree in order to help their colleague in the tree who was facing down half a dozen police officers as he made his descent. These protesters were quickly arrested, and it could certainly be said that they were trespassing.

However, I was simply taking photos of the protesters and the police reaction. The police officer who slapped the camera from my face and then shoved me was, in my opinion, overreacting, especially since he did not identify himself as a police officer beforehand, and since I was only taking pictures outside of the demonstration.

The number of plain-clothed officers responding to this protest certainly relates to a recent interview I did with an Italian activist. I'll have that interview up in the near future.

We just happened upon this demonstration; it occurred about 20 minutes after we arrived to see the Vatican. Interestingly, most all the protesters were chanting in Spanish, so I wonder if they travelled from Spain for this particular movement. I couldn't find anything online about it.