When you move to a new country you know nothing. You know so little that you don’t even know that you know nothing. Adjusting to life in a new country means you encounter people constantly telling you “how things work here” who realize you have no knowledge with which to defend yourself.

Meeting new people in Sweden can be a daunting experience, especially when you are not sure of the local social codes — those which influence when and how is it acceptable to approach someone, what questions are off-limits and at what pace friendships progress.

Surprisingly my 3 years, 9 months and 8 days in Sweden have resulted in 2 Swedish friends. If my math is right, and it might very well not be, I have added one Swedish friend to my circle of friends every 686.5 days. Outside of my two Swedish friends, I have 3 Russian, 3 German, 2 Portuguese, 2 Turkish and 1 Jordanian...

Making friends can be tough. But what's life like for someone who's completely new to Sweden? We spoke to Olga to find out: "For the most part people’s friends are from their childhood or maybe university. Social interaction is based on planning, it’s not very spontaneous. It’s really tough to get yourself into someone...