Thanks for the great reply.

I want to end my trip by spending 3 months in Spain learning Spanish. I'm thinking of Valencia because I think it'll be fairly warm there even during winter months, it's somewhat central, I hear it's fun, and everyone speaks Spanish... Barcelona would be a really fun city to live in also but I think it'd be better to be surrounded 100% by the language I am learning instead of Catalan :-)

Before now, I've only heard of living with a foreign family as a thing younger students do. I'm approaching 30... would it be weird to do at this age or is it normal?