Dear readers, I apologize for the barren blogscape that has been November. Let’s just say National Novel Writing Month is no joke. To make it up to you, I give you one of the coolest videos I’ve seen in a long time. Forget about that silly volcano with the name no one could pronounce, Iceland looks amazing. Who wants to go with me?

Midnight Sun | Iceland from SCIENTIFANTASTIC on Vimeo.

I KNOW. Know what else? You can do things like snorkel between tectonic plates. Tectonic plates, people.

The quickie facts:

• Official Language Icelandic
• Area 103, 000 sq km
• Population 300, 000
• Famous for fishing, sagas, Björk, the Blue Lagoon, rotten shark meat
• Capital Reykjavík
• Phrases halló (hello), gjörðu svo vel (please), takk fyrir(thanks), skál! (cheers!)
• Currency króna (Ikr) : €1 = Ikr180.11; US$1 = Ikr127.52; UK£1 = Ikr138.31; A$1 = Ikr103.43; CA$1 = Ikr110.36; NZ$1 = Ikr83.38; ¥100 = Ikr133.03

Yes, Iceland has fewer people – in the entire country – than D.C. Then again, a significant portion of the country is uninhabitable, with 11% covered in glaciers. They are in fact, pretty far north. What this also means is that they have a kick-ass nighttime scene (that far north also means a winter of only 3-4 hours light). Apparently they can handle their drinking though, since their life expectancy is 81.3 for women and 76.4 for men, one of the highest in the world. And as Visit Iceland says, their comprehensive state health-care system aims to keep it that way. Bless them. They also earn extra social progressive points for having the first openly gay female president, Johanna Sigurdardottir.

Oh, Iceland. We need to meet soon.

* Thanks to Lonely Planet for the list and CountriesofEurope.com for the photo