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 t...