I can help you bigtime with advice on how to go about it once you've picked a country/language you want to experience/travel to/study_language. My method is constant regardless the country.
You're sooo right about culture and language going hand in hand. It really is a beautiful thing to experience.
And this is where the magnificent WOMAN comes in. Bless them all. It always went that way for me. Go to a new country, meet a beautiful local girl, she can hardly speak any english, so I find a special class for foreigners, pay the extra charges and get a qualified, licensed teacher for 2h/d one on one (I'm very fast with languages) - in less than a week my gal and I are speaking in local lingo and dig this - she is pouring her heart out to help me learn, showing me new words and correcting my mistakes etc.
The Thai girl I'm with was 19 when I met her - not a word of english - turned me down 3 times saying, "Chan mai chorp farang" = "I don't like foreigners"
I nailed her with, "I speak some thai now" in stuttering thai 6 days later. She came on the first date and she was a goner within 1 hour. We started living together the very next day. Still together and she gets it all when I croak. Takes care of me like no woman ever has, although when it comes to women I have hardly any complaints at all - except for some stateside bad attitude bitches.
