冰岛寒冷小礁石上最幸福生活.docVIP

冰岛寒冷小礁石上最幸福生活 　　The small island nation is ranked among the happiest and healthiest in the world， despite financial crisis， volcanoes， and straight-up darkness. 　　In a Reykjavik cafe last week， a tour guide named Anne told me it was because she found Icelanders so genuinely positive that she’d moved there from Germany. Her perspective on the country was engaging. When she volunteered six years ago to work there on a farm， she was struck by how welcoming everyone was； their daily upbeat greetings felt invariably genuine. Despite her short stay， she got to know many locals. 　　Icelanders have been resilient and stoic in the face of disasters like volcanic eruptions， earthquakes， and the 2008 financial collapse that hit this tiny country hard. “The stoicism is important to deal with the randomness of nature and the recent financial crash，” Iceland embassy counselor Erlingur Erlingsson told me in Washington， D. C. Beyond stoicism， though， Iceland ranks as the third happiest country in the world—just behind Denmark and Costa Rica， according to the World Database of Happiness through 2009. 　　There are only 320，000 people living there， and the landmass is just the size of Virginia. Most of the population shares the thousand-year-old Viking and Celtic background. The country is homogeneous except for a small percentage of immigrants from elsewhere. Icelanders speak excellent English， but there remains a need to speak Icelandic to be fully integrated into the society. Although it’s a founding member of NATO， its isolated location and protection by Britain and the United States going back to World War II has afforded it the luxury of doing without an army. 　　We saw only one police car on the road， one security guard at the American Embassy， and two guys chatting at the railing of a coast guard ship in the harbor. “Iceland is one of the few countries in the world with no military，” Erlingur Erlingsson confirmed. 　　At the Laundromat Cafe， which includes a cozy cafe and pl