New challenge is set - learning Spanish

It is rather sudden, but yesterday I decided to start learning Spanish. I wanted to take a break from studying Japanese and try a new language.
Spanish is widespread (in TOP-3 of world languages), interesting and not very difficult, afaik. Spain has a rich culture, so there are a lot of things to get known.
Anyway learning foreign languages is a good investment in many ways.

When one starts exploring something new, the first question is "How to do it?" Currently there are many ways of learning new languages:

• Many organizations and private tutors offer good education;
• The number of textbooks is impressing;
• Already many learning systems exist, and new appear frequently;
• There are many sites which offer information or courses;
• Communities (like lang-8) offer people a possibility to help each other on the way to the new language;
• And so on;

It is easy to be overwhelmed by the possibilities and one can spend days or weeks on choosing the "right" way or trying one idea after another, searching for the best one.

I decided to start with 2 resources:

1. Duolingo. I suppose this site doesn't need introductions. While it has some drawbacks, it's very good at the beginning and lower medium levels, I think. It provides enough exercises so that topics and grammar points stuck in one's memory, it offeres training in pronunciation and various practice in the form of immersion;
2. The second one is a good textbook called "Spanish An Essential Grammar". I used a book from this series while studying German and it helped a lot;

I suppose these two things will keep me busy for a month. Looking forward for the new knowledge!