On my first day of work in Sweden, 13 years, 6 months, and 22 days ago, I took the subway from my apartment, a place that a friend of a new colleague let me use for a couple of weeks while I was looking for a place of my own, and I headed downtown.

I had only lived in Stockholm for five days, and had mostly just walked around the neighbourhood – and accumulated parking tickets right outside my apartment building.

I got on the red subway line towards downtown, and sat down reading a book, like a real Stockholmer. And then, as the subway train got closer to the Old Town where the office was, I … well, I panicked. I got off at a stop that was just before the Old Town, foolishly thinking that it would be faster to walk from there than to walk from the actual Old Town stop.

I got out of the train, and out of the subway station, turned left and started walking. Fast, with a purpose, like a busy, international businessman on his way to the office to do business with other businesspeople.

And then I stopped. I looked left, I looked further up the street, but didn’t recognize any of the buildings. So I turned around and looked down the street and there, below me, was the Old Town. I picked up the pace and started to walk down down the hill. Fast. And with a purpose.

Moving to another country is a big step, and while most of us would like to feel right at home right away, it does take time. According to Risto’s first rule of immigration you haven’t landed until you recognize the celebrities on the front pages of papers. For me, that took a few months.

According to Risto’s second rule, you’re not really home until you’ve seen what your new neighbourhood looks like in all four seasons. Up here it takes a year, somewhere else – with fewer seasons – the process is faster.

And then there are the anchor points in each city, the places that help you navigate it, both physically and emotionally.

Stockholm’s not easy to navigate. The city is built on fourteen islands, so there are dozens of bridges and overpasses that take you to different directions. Often I found myself looking helplessly out the car window, staring at the ramp that I should have been on.

And the Old Town, with its crooked streets and narrow alleyways, makes it easy for anyone to lose his sense of direction. Physically and emotionally.

In my last year of college, a group of friends and I took the ferry to Stockholm. One of the ferry lines gave students a deal on weekday cruises, and we jumped at one of those. In the morning, we walked through the Old Town, making a stop at the Finnish record store, and at the Royal Palace, and then heading up the Queen’s Street to Sergel’s Torg, a big square downtown.

One of the guys knew that there was a Hard Rock Cafe in Stockholm. It was lunch time, and we were hungry so it was decided that we should have lunch in a rocking environment. Nobody knew where the Hard Rock Cafe was.

Well, we were a smart group of guys, college educated fellows, so we sent one guy into the Culture House next to the square to get directions. Well, we sent him there after our initial inquiries at the square had failed.

He went in, and we waited outside. And we waited. Then some more, and finally he turned up with a piece of paper.

“OK, I got it. A five-minute walk,” he said, and started walking. Fast. With a purpose.

“It’s not far, it’s just up the street, that main street there, a couple of blocks from here,” he added, sort of yelling this piece of information over his shoulder to us, his followers.

Two blocks later, one of us asked him if we were close.

“Yeah, just one more block,” he said.

Two blocks later, somebody asked him if we were close.

“Yeah, just one more block,” he said, and kept on walking.

Two blocks later, we asked him if we were close.

“Yeah, just one more block,” he said.

At that point, we stopped. Something was obviously wrong. We were hungry, and we wanted food. It didn’t have to be rocking anymore.

“Seriously, guys, we’re almost there. Just one more block,” he said.

“OK, one more? For sure?” we said, all sweaty and cranky. We had been walking about a kilometer – 15 minutes – at that point, but it felt like seven.

“Guaranteed,” he said.

It took us another 15 minutes to walk that one block. Because it was actually seven blocks.

That day, I learned that the Hard Rock Cafe is 13 blocks – or 1.6 kilometers – from Sergels Torg.

When our new neighbours moved in last year, the husband told us that he had a golf equipment store in the city.

“Really? Whereabouts?” I asked him.

“It’s right next to the Hard Rock Cafe…,” he said, and before he could finish his sentence, I said:

“I know where it is.”

Then, I casually adjusted my baseball hat and said, just as casually:

“Yeah, yeah, Hard Rock Cafe. I know exactly where it is. Next to the library, right?”