I would think that Americans would be a little more eager to learn when in another country. After all we hear "Why don't the try to speak English? Why are we printing signs in Spanish? If we went to their country we would try to speak their language and they wouldn't print the signs in English." all the time. I got angry once at a Mexican restaurant. We went there for lunch. My coworker was ordering his food and giving all kinds of instructions to the girl and she wasn't understanding what he was saying. He started getting mad at her and I got angry at him. His attitude is "They come over here and take our jobs and they should at least learn English..." Well you could tell she was clearly trying to learn English. But... This guy is an idiot anyway. If I had known more Spanish I could have ordered for him. (Trying not to get too political but I don't think people should be allowed to illegally come to our country, but in a legal way I'm all for it. I know enough 2nd generation Mexican immigrants to know that it's rude to point them out because they can speak in a tongue other than English and have slightly darker skin. Also it's not my job to find illegals. I can't imagine how my friend Elsa must live if she is constantly asked if she's a citizen. I do imagine that my co worker would be angry if he was asked the same...)
Anyway I wanted to learn a second language. While researching Spanish was the one that I felt I could get the most use of. As I'm learning more and more about the language and about the people and countries that speak it I find more and more reason to keep studying it. Did you know that the largest non white ethnic group in the USA are of Spanish speaking decent? Or that the country that has the second largest Spanish speaking population is the USA? Yep, I think it will come in handy.
Could have already been very handy if I would have gotten off my kester and learned it sooner.