If you didn't have US citizenship or an education ...

[Boojatta]

17. Thank you for your contribution to this thread.

insulating yourself within a community that shares your culture and language is not necessarily a prescription for success

I agree with this, but I don't see its relevance to this thread. After all, I could have proposed spending three months on each of four different languages, for a total of a year, but I think that there is a lesson in the blur experience that you mentioned. As for learning a culture or acquiring a presence in some community that allows for maintaining active socializing within it, I doubt that it's feasible to either find formal instruction or to create a viable business (analogous to Rosettastone or Berlitz) that offers such instruction.