I`m currently studying C++ and want to learn another language.
For work I use C# + ASP (just started learning it, actually), but I want something "less Microsoft" and powerful.
I have heard Python is a popular and powerful language, not so complicated as C++. But many people mentioned it was hard for them to get back to C++/Java from Python because they started thinking in it, get used to absence of memory management, etc.
What do you recommend?
Python is complementary to C++ and easy to integrate with C++.  (As evidence of this claim, the C++ gurus from Boost use Python.)
And as you said, Python gives you a way to get a perspective outside the Microsoft orbit. But even there, if you need to integrate Python with MS tools, there's IronPython.
Should I learn Python after C++?