I am in Germany. Not a lot of culture shock here, people are a little less open than at home (where we are like OOH EXCHANGE STUDENT! LET'S SAY HI!) but not horribly so or anything. Most people speak some English, and some will have to be reminded again and again to speak German to me so I can learn. Others simply won't speak English to me at all, which means that it's only now that I can speak a little German that I am starting to get to know them. As far as culture-shock goes, European culture will be MUCH easier to get used to than Japanese. It's much more like North America than Asia is. Spanish is useful, as are French and German, but you shouldn't reject a country simply because the language isn't useful. Knowing Greek might not open the same doors as Spanish, but it still opens some. I'm from Canada, so the "logical" language to learn would have been French. But the countries I picked were Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Norway. I figured I either wanted German (French seemed boring after many years of it in school), or a cool, random language (like Dutch when you aren't Dutch). Whatever you pick, you will come back with a good grasp of the language (Japanese is harder, but with most other languages, kids come back fluent, though of course not perfect). That was another reason I decided against French — I know some already, so why not learn a whole different language?

And all countries are going to be beautiful. Especially when you are foreign and find everything amazing.