Thanks for the link, I'll check it out. I agree its a shame the US doesn't encourage learning foreign languages beyond the 2 years of high school, but I think its largely because we don't need to. Our neighbors speak english (sort of) and with only 2 weeks of vacation a year most don't go beyond Hawaii or Mexico for vacation.

I had taken 3 years of french in high school and was able to read and write fluently at the time. Beyond the few and far between trips to France I have very little opportunity to use it and in my travels encounter very few French. So perhaps German will provide to be more useful as I travel more these days to places where I think I could use it.