For anyone who isn't into highly social hobbies the countryside is usually at least equally good. Apart from restaurants and larger selection of food in stores, city life has not changed my free time much at all.
Nope, if pilots fail to handle an emergency due to poor training, then it's the airline that trained them which is really responsible. Blaming individuals for failures of an organization is not a good strategy for improving safety
Also, in this situation disengaging the autopilot would not stop the nose down inputs. It's a new design on 737MAX, and whether Boeing informed airline about it well enough determines if they are at fault or not.