Well the first thing you don't want to do is go out and buy a telescope. Why? Well a lot of people think they are interested in astronomy but don't know what to do when they get their telescope. What I suggest is to buy a pair of binoculars first. A pair of 10x50 binoculars will work just fine and you can see many cool celestial objects.
You wouldn't believe the stuff you can see with a pair of binoculars. If you don't believe that, just download the star map from www.skymaps.com and look at the binocular list. It is a free star map.
So when are you ready to buy a telescope, well once you learn the sky and all of its wonders it is time to move up.
I will post something on buying the right telescope for you.