Hello! Welcome to the forums! The first thing you should do is sign up at coinbase. You can check out my hub (http://hub.nahtnam.com), which has a lot of links that take you to my favorite sites!

^{BTW, Im the friend}

- An online-wallet like blockchain.info is a good way to get started
- Best start by buying a small amount of Bitcoins first to learn how to use and securely store them, before investing a lot
- Avoid investing in altcoins, mining hardware and Bitcoin securities unless you really know what you are doing. Most of those are bad deals.
- Faucets aren't a good way to get started anymore, because the amounts are so tiny that it's not worth the time (and it's difficult to send those tiny tiny amounts)