Catalunya
Some photos from Barcelona and Badalona below.
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What a beautiful area - thanks so much for sharing! 
The old Kingdom of Aragón wasn't much affected by the Moorish invasion and 7 century-long occupation, so it retained just about 100% of its Latin origins, where Castilian (castellano, or "Spanish"
is peppered with "Arabisms (for lack of a better word)." To make matters more complicated, the Catalan of Barcelona is slightly different from that of Girona or Tarragona or Mallorca, and markedly different from the version spoken in València. Apparently, the Barcelona version, spoken with a slight Texan twang, sounds eactly like the Mallorcan version, because people in Barcelona frequently note that I must be from Mallorca originally, as I haven't lost my accent completely. How THAT is, I couldn't tell you, but I ran into a group of Catalans in Switzerland a few years ago, and one of them, who was from Mallorca, assumed, from the way I spoke, that I was from his neighborhood (!!).
Of course, the written language will be easier to follow, just like Portuguese is not too difficult to follow when written down, but nearly impossible to follow when spoken, especially the European version. I find Brazilian Portuguese a lot easier to understand. With Catalan, just remember that the unstressed "o" is usually pronounced as a "u," and an unstressed "e" is pronounced like an "ah"--except in Valencià, where the "e" is pronounced the same as in Castilian, whether stressed or not. Also: "er" at the end or a word is pronounced as in French. Written texts in Catalan pre-date texts in Castilian by about a century, by the way--trivia fact for the day.
If you end up in the Netherlands, two things to remember: first--their language is NOT as difficult as it first sounds, and second--NEVER leave the house without an umbrella. You MIGHT not need it, but you probably will! To pronounce Dutch correctly, if you are just starting out, always carry a portion of mashed potatoes with you and stick it your throat before trying to speak. It will help you get used to the proper way to say basic things like "graag gedaan (you're welcome)."
