I moved from New York to Maine 4 years ago. I'm still surprised at how friendly people are and how far away everything is.

• I'm originally from Argentina but married a Mainer while living in New York City.
• We had three kids and realized we wanted a house with a yard for them to grow up in.
• People here are so incredibly friendly and we've made a fun group of friends in our 40s.

When I found out I was pregnant with twins in 2019, my first thought was, "We won't fit in our apartment." At the time, my husband, our 2-year-old, and two dogs were already living in a cramped one-bedroom apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

We loved our life in the city but also wanted to give our kids space. We debated where to move and settled in Maine for two reasons: it's where my husband was born, and I needed to be near the ocean.

We moved in 2020 and adjusted pretty quickly to living in the suburbs. Here are the things that surprised me from moving from New York City, to Portland, Maine .

Everyone is so friendly

Mainers have a reputation for being friendly, but I was still surprised by how friendly people were when we first moved here. And it hasn't changed four years later.

When we first moved into our house, our neighbors wrote, "Welcome home!" on our driveway with chalk. It was a time when everyone was social distancing because of the pandemic, but even a small act like that made us feel so welcomed.

In the years we've been here, we've made such a big and fun group of friends. It's surprising because my husband and I are at an age where people say it's harder to make friends , but living in Maine has made it very easy for us. We have friends with kids the same age as ours but also intergenerational friendships with older people in the community.

People actually care about each other, which has been a refreshing change for us.

Our kids get to be kids

I grew up living in apartments for my entire life and felt like I missed out on a little bit of being a kid. As a parent, I see it in how I stress out about my kids' clothes getting dirty when they play outside or how my idea of fun is watching a movie instead of playing on the driveway. My husband had the opposite upbringing, and he loves doing things outside.

Our kids went from being " brewery babies " — a term I made up because they spent so much time hanging out in breweries in the city — to being full-on feral kids.

They can spend hours digging in dirt, picking up frogs who've made their way out of the pond in our backyard, fishing in a lake, or (when it gets colder) building snow forts and skiing.

There's something to do regardless of weather

Maine winters can be brutal, and as someone from South America, I'm still adjusting to the frigid temperatures. That said, there are things to do throughout the year, and we look forward to the changing of the seasons because of that.

My kids, who are 6, 4, and 4, have picked up skiing and ice skating pretty quickly because that's what everyone does with their kids to keep them entertained when it's cold. But they also love swimming in the lake or bodyboarding in the ocean. We go apple picking in the fall, and in the spring, we plant our vegetable garden.

Everything is a 20-minute car ride

One of the things I miss the most about living in New York City, or even my hometown of Buenos Aires , is being able to walk places. Here in Maine, unless you live in downtown Portland, you need a car for absolutely everything.

I always joke that things are always a 20-minute car ride away, regardless of which direction you are going. With three kids who require doctor appointments, different school pickups, and have different sets of friends, it feels like I'm always driving somewhere.

I also miss the serendipity of walking around with no direction and finding new places or things to do.

I miss having cultural events closeby

Living in New York probably spoiled me rotten because artists always stop there for shows, there are endless museums, and you can always find something new to experience. Living in Maine has left me wanting more cultural events to attend.

We drive often to Boston for concerts, but it's still a two-hour drive, and with little kids, it's not always easy. Sometimes, bigger artists make their way to Maine, but they go to Bangor instead of Portland, which again is a two-hour drive north.

Maybe as Portland grows, more artists will decide to stop. It is a great place to visit, after all.