Heyyyyy =] Glad to hear about your enthusiasm, quite a few applications these days are written in C++ (Firefox being a major one) and i wish i'd started by learning it rather than the languages i've leared...
To write C++ you need:
A compiler
A text editor
Though if you want you can use a free IDE called Dev-C++ which is a text editor which compiles easily etc...(i'd advise this [its free and easy] its what i use)
There are a number of free resources for learning C++ online and this is the best(in my opinion and many others'):
http://www.cprogramming.com/
Here you will find a getting started tutorial, it will guide you through setting up Dev-C++ (installing, there really isn't much setting up) then it will teach you the basics then more advanced stuff... It's an amazing resource i suggest you try it out.
Hope you get started alright this forums is here to help if you have any problems (if you read the getting started then the basic tutorials you shouldn't have many problems though =])
Cheers,
Jamey