My name is Jason, and I already hate it here. My family just moved from the suburbs of NYC to a small town in New Hampshire. My dad got a new job here so now me, my sister and my mom all have to leave one of the best cities in the world to live in the middle of nowhere. I mean honestly, does anyone know where New Hampshire is? 

Our house is around 15 minutes away. My mom showed us some pictures of it and it seems nice but seeing something in person is way different than seeing online. We pull into this neighborhood and it’s really quiet. Which is something that I’ve noticed here, there are literally no sounds, no cars, no people, nothing, just the occasional lawn mower. I have just moved from one of the coolest cities in the world to terrible, tree-filled, tractor land. This is going to suck.

It's been one week, one long miserable week, while my friends are having fun in New York. I'm stuck here with literally nothing to do outside my house except to look at trees. My New York City skyline bedroom view has been replaced by trees. School starts in a few weeks and I hope it's not as bad as the rest of this place. My younger sister, Katie, loves it here. She will go outside every single day and go “exploring” in the woods. One time she begged me to go with her but after getting bit by like a million mosquitos I decided that I’m never going to go in the woods ever again. 

It's the first day of school and I honestly have no idea what I’m doing. Luckily, all the other freshmen here don’t know what to do either. I met this guy who’s in my math class and we have a lot of the same classes. His name is Ben and he’s pretty nice. Hopefully we have more in common than just our classes. Overall, the actual school isn’t too bad, it looks and feels like a normal school but just with entirely different people. 

At the end of the school day today, Ben asked me if I wanted to go on a hike with him and a couple of his friends. I said yes, because what else was I supposed to do? I don’t know anyone here except for Ben so it might be worth it, but I’m not going to hold my breath. 

I’m standing at the trailhead with Ben and we’re waiting on Aiden, Ben’s friend to fill up his water bottle. As I was standing there I realized how out of place I felt, my walking for the past decade and a half has been on paved sidewalks. I’m like an animal that’s been kept in a zoo for my entire life and I’m just getting thrown out into the wild. I have no idea how I’m going to keep up with this kid. Aiden just finished filling up his water bottle and we’re on our way to the top. 

We’re halfway there to the top and it's honestly not that bad, it's fall so there aren’t any mosquitos or other bugs and right now the woods aren’t so bad. I’m eating lunch right next to this huge waterfall and it feels really nice and cool. I’m starting to understand why Katie liked the woods so much. 

We reached the top and it was so worth it. I feel like I can see everything from up here, it's crazy. Everything looks so small and I can barely see the parking lot where we started. It's really hot though and there’s no trees so we start to head back down. We went back to the waterfall and we decided to just sit there for a bit. Then Aiden just gets up and climbs up to the top of the waterfall. Ben decides to do it too and climbs up super easily. . Not wanting to be alone I tried to do it too, it was probably 10 feet tall but it was so wet and I could barely get a grip on the rock, I reach for the top but my foot slips and I scrape my knee, luckily I got a good hold of a rock at the top and didn’t slip into the shallow pool of water below. That wouldn’t be fun.

After we got back we all went out for ice cream. I realized today that New Hampshire isn’t really all that bad. It's really nice in the fall with all the colors, it honestly looks like a painting. I still miss New York though. 

It's December and I’m going skiing with Ben and Aiden. I skied a lot in New York but we had to drive pretty far for it. Here it seems like there’s 50 ski resorts in the state. Skiing is really big here in New Hampshire and it seems like almost everyone in my school goes skiing every weekend. When we got to the ski resort it was all powder which was really nice. We got our skis on and we got on the chairlift. There’s so many people here skiing on all the different slopes, I never expected that there would be this much. When we got to the top we decided to go down a blue trail. I didn’t really know where I was going so I just followed Ben but then I lost him and I took a turn. Into a Black Diamond. 

I’ve only done a few Black Diamonds in New York and they weren’t exactly my best experience skiing. A bunch of people go zipping past me and one dude goes off this huge jump and goes probably 10 feet in the air. I calm down and focus and try to slow myself down. Luckily I joined the trail near the bottom of the mountain and I can see the bottom. I reached the bottom but not how I expected I would, there was a big chunk of snow and I tripped and fell over it and went sliding down the slope. 

After my big fall, we all went out to get ice cream, again. My elbow really hurts but there wasn’t really a bruise or anything else. While we eat, Aiden asks me how I’m adjusting to New Hampshire. I think back to my first hike, how I enjoyed the waterfall, the view at the top. The ice cream afterwards. Honestly, from when I first moved here to now, my opinion on this place has changed drastically. I thought that the trees and quiet was annoying and bad. But now, I realize why people like it. I still prefer the craziness of NYC but going outside isn’t too bad. I tell Aiden “I’m adjusting great.”