[RunDownHouse]

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Bavaria - learn a language, awesome beer, easy day trips to neighboring countries, and they [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] americans.

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More specifically, Regensburg or Munich. Regensburg is a smaller town about an hour north of Munich, on the Danube. If you remember the opening scene in Gladiator, where they're in the woods in a battle, that's actually the historical founding of the city. The Uni has about 30k students, and that's a healthy percentage of the town. Regensburg was also one of the few towns not destroyed in WWII, which means the medieval downtown is intact. They've turned most of it into a pedestrian zone, and the result is lots of uni students all walking the streets from pub to pub to club. Geographically, its an hour from Munich, a four-hour bus ride to Prague, an hour or so to the Black Forest.

Munich is obviously a much bigger city than Regensburg. You'll have all the advantages of a bigger metropolitan area, like more culture (theatre, plays, historical monuments, etc), better public transit (although this isn't really a problem anywhere in Europe, in general), more/varied bars and clubs, and so on. It also has the downsides, like more crowding, a bit more impersonal, many more tourists, etc.

You should PM jason_t to ask him about Prague, as he lived there for a couple years (?). I can tell you that you won't be able to pick up the language very quickly, certainly not in the time span of something like six months. It is a really awesome city, though. When I was in Regensburg I made that bus ride 4 or 5 times. I once even got stranded with no cash when my passport got stolen, and still had an ok time. The only city in Europe I liked more was Budapest.

Overall, I'd have to recommend somewhere in Germany for a couple reasons. First, you're closer to eastern Europe, which I definitely favored over western. Second, the language isn't that hard, and is surprisingly close to English for those who haven't studied it. Third, the beer culture is unbelievable, and weed is pretty much accepted in all but the letter of the law. Fourth, its much cheaper than Great Britain, although not as cheap as Czech/Hungary.

Good luck and post when you've made up your mind.