great for a first try!!!??? you kidding? i love this! great job man!

One thing I noticed, and I've found in other maps.. when your trying to go for a reflective look on water... I'm assuming you used a textured layer and used a mask to have it show through on all the water... if you wanted it to pop a bit more, you might want to add reflection to the waterbodies individually.. a lot more work, but it'd make a difference i'm sure.. of course that's a lot more work I know the USGS guys add reflections to their maps by hand sometimes, it's all about making it look realistic to the user (much like how when you see an rich green aerial photo it's not the real colour, it's replaced the green band with Infrared and messed with the colours... Wierd tricks of the trade, but on such a realistic looking map, it might work well on yours map.. not something i've done, so i can't say how.. but i know they do it..