A Tale Of Two States Essay, Research Paper
Have you ever stopped and wondered how different the United States really is? When I was growing up, it never really crossed my mind until a few days after my
Sixteenth birthday. It was then that I discovered I was moving fifteen hundred miles
from South Florida to a small town called Port Jervis in New York. Immediately, I realized how different the weather, people, and landscape was in this new environment compared to the place I had always called home.
The first major difference I noticed was the change in weather. Living in the Sunshine State all of my life, I became spoiled with its year round tropical climate. I was used to the warm, sunny days and the clear, moonlit nights. From March until October I could always count on plenty of days to keep up my tan. The first summer in New York, I soon learned that if I wanted to stay tan I needed to make regular trips to the local tanning salon. Even though the sun would shine from time to time, it never seemed to do the job. Instead, it was just hot, miserable, and loaded with bugs. The winters in New York were even worse. I had always thought of snow as white cotton balls falling from the sky. I pictured snowball fights and toboggan rides and all the other things you see on television. Those dreams became a horrible reality when October arrived. The first day it snowed, I thought it was fascinating. The second day, I was still quite amazed. But after the third day of constant snowing, I began to realize why people hated it so much. I was basically stuck inside the house with nothing to do until it stopped and the roads were cleared. From early October until late March the temperature never rose above 50 degrees. The winters in Florida very rarely fall below 50 degrees. During the day, it is usually in the eighties and at night in the sixties. I could basically wear shorts and tank tops year round. In New York, it would take me twenty minutes to put on the four layers of clothing I needed just to go outside and check the mailbox. The difference in weather definitely took a lot for me to get used to, but that was only the beginning of my transition to a new state.
The next major difference between the two states I had to overcome was the people. Although I had my entire family surrounding me, which I did not have in the past, I still missed my friends from Florida. Being a new student in a small town high school was hard enough, but having no companions was more challenging. I felt like such an outcast because, in all actuality, I was. They all had known each other since they were babies, like I had known my friends from back home. They had their own style of clothing, language, and hobbies that southerners were not used to. I was use to going to beach, out in the boat, or to the mall. Their idea of fun was to go rafting in frigid water and hangout in old deserted barns. Because of that, I had a very difficult time adjusting to my new peers. I knew that eventually I would make new friends but first I had to stop comparing them to the one s I would never forget.
The last major difference I noticed between Florida and New York was the landscape. Everywhere I looked I saw something new. Instead of Florida s palm trees and pine trees, I found oak trees with yellow, red, and orange leaves from the change of season. When I drove in the car, I was constantly popping my ears from the increase in elevation as we went through the mountains. In Florida there are no mountains only very small hills. I could no longer take a trip to a salt water beach with sea shells and pelicans. I now would go to a man made lake with artificial sand and a crowd of ducks. On the weekends, I would go berry picking in the fields of the country instead of gathering oranges in the Florida groves. I would look down from my second story window at the wild deer in my back yard in search of some type of food off the icy ground and I would think to myself that this would never happen in Florida.
In conclusion, every place in the United States has a variety of differences to offer. Moving from a state that I have known as my home for my entire life to a place where the weather, landscape, and people are entirely different is a goal to achieve in itself. I now can say that I have had the opportunity to know two sides from a very
large world.