Hi! TL:DR at bottom!
I'm sure the "I'm taking a gap year" posts are pretty annoying, so any links or resources are more than appreciated if you don't have time for a written resonse. If I'm not posting in the right subreddit please redirect me and please forgive my ignorance! I did some searching but am having a bit of trouble on some details. Some of the work questions might not be appropriate for the subreddit as well, but any experience with the countries that you have would be awesome!
Who am I?:
18 year Canadian male from BC, Canada. Just graduated high school with an academic focus. I have the intention of taking engineering in university either this year or the next. I do not speak a second language, but would love to learn.
When?
Ideally I would leave Canada in September or October, but I haven't booked flights before and don't know if this is reasonable or not. Can be later of course. I would plan on staying until around august 2015 before returning to Canada to go to school. If I end up falling in love with a country/culture/girl/man(?), then I may consider staying and going to school in Europe.
Where?
I would love to go to Germany, as I think the language is very useful and I have a friend who may be interested in coming as well (not critical to decision, though). England would be fine. Also thought about Switzerland, Spain and France but don't know too much about them.
What do you want to do there?
Mostly I would like to pick one country to stay at most of the time. I would like to work to finance my trip. This is probably the biggest factor for me and finding a job would be very important. I have Irish citizenship, which will hopefully be beneficial.
Budget
As mentioned before, I would like to work at location to finance the trip. In a perfect world I would make some money over the year, but if I broke even or was slightly down after airfare and accommodation that would be fine. I am generally very careful with money and wouldn't be spending much on anything that wasn't too necessary unless it was a planned outing/event. I have around $20,000 to my name that I have saved from jobs, birthdays etc to pay for the share of university my parents and I agreed upon. Recently an Uncle passed away and left enough money for me to pay for my education, which was very kind. Long story short, I have money that can be spent in a pinch, but I would prefer not to be burning funds just to stay abroad.
What I like: I might be overreaching with job/school queries, so this is what I like!
Moderate climate preferred: not too big of a deal, but I would prefer not to be baked to death half the year and taking a toboggan to work the other half.
Language: I would love to learn another language, but definitely would prefer one that is more practical for business/engineering/resume. As cool as Norweigan or Icelandic may be, I don't think it's as useful as German, Spanish or French. Of course if it turns out that Sweden is THE place to be, it wouldn't hurt to learn Swedish. I've heard their English is typically very good, so I'd hopefully be okay.
Sports: I lift weights regularly and would like to compete in powerlifting and get into olympic weightlifting. I don't think finding a gym would be too hard, but any other sporting opportunities would be great.
I have travelled to Japan and California for two weeks and to most of the Australian east coast. Enjoyed all three locations, but found California very, very busy. Surprisingly, Japan seemed a lot more vast than it was dense a lot of the time. As I was younger when I went to these places, I was more along for the ride than I was immersed in the culture, so I don't have a strong opinion on what I do or don't like. I have never been to Europe!
Thanks for reading (if you made it!) I know it's a lot to read through. Any thoughts or information is greatly appreciated!
TL:DR; Gap year. 18 year old Canadian male. Want work in one EU country to pay for trip. Have citizenship. leave sep,oct, or nov, idk. Come back next year -- maybe. Have money to pay for stuff, but would prefer not to. Germany, Spain, England, Switzerland, and maybe France look good. If somewhere else is good I can be easily convinced. Probably pass on Ukraine atm.