Java was the first OO language which I learnt and I was instantly hooked with it. There was no fancy tools or development environment which I think made for a more effective learning experience. It was just a case of using the command line for compilation and execution with the Programmer's File Editor (Notepad with line numbers) for code creation.

Knowing the java syntax certainly made the transition to C# for me a whole lot easier than for those VB-ers.