Funny, annhig. We once vacationed in that little area of Austria that borders on Switzerland and Italy in a hotel full of French speakers. By the second day there, I was speaking language salad. Every sentence had bits of at least 3 languages in it. Plus I kept doing really stupid things like putting Austrian stamps on postcards and mailing them from Italy. That was one confusing trip!

I would not call Spanish grammar simple...especially if one has no background in romance languages.

Many learners of Spanish,even after several of years of studying, are not sure about the correct use of SER versus ESTAR or PRETERIT versus IMPERFECT.
And of course, the pesky subjunctive always confuses English speakers.
Reading a language and connecting the dots to a language from the same "group" is always much easier than carrying on even a simple conversation .

several years of studying....

<we met some mexicans in Rome whose technique was to shout in Spanish>

I recall an Australian of Uruguayan background I met in Italy saying all she had to do to get by quite well was speak a bit of Spanish and wave her arms around more emphatically.

While the most taught languages in Australian schools are Mandarin, French and Italian, the 2nd most spoken language in the home is Italian.

However, the fast growing and now most in demand language in Australia for study at all levels is Spanish. And that's despite the fact that Spanish has almost no historical context in Australia. Very little immigration from Spain or Latin America either. Just a perception of the changing face of the world.

Me, I would try to get a dozen or so phases if I were only going to be there a few days. So many languages in the world, I think it's probably best to find what studies would suit ones life more so than what would suit a vacation.

German i Germany, French in France and Italian in Italy, sorry, there is no ONE second language when you go to those countries. There are many German speaking people in north and west Poland, in Czech, Austria and Switzerland (duh!). Also many people speak Italian in the south of Switzerland, but... thats about all. They should have no problems speaking English on the other hand. But if I would to have to pick one, I say German.