There were 32 of us, including a few tag along Americans and we travelled up North for the weekend to the beautiful Medinat Achsiv, an independent and legally established state in the northern part of the country. Eli Avivi, is a crazy eccentric old man and many years ago had a bit of a fall out with the Jewish Agency. This inevitably led to his land (which he had bought of them) being declared an independent state! He lives with his wife Rina, whilst his many girlfriends only visit occasionally and makes a hell of a lot of money out of the tourists who visit his kingdom.
Try and imagine what God may look like….. Old, white beard, robes and sandals right?

Yeah, that's Mr Avivi - or President Avivi, if you'd like his official title. He has been living on the land for 53 years and although he didn't tell us much about himself, we made our own assumptions pretty quickly.

He asked the boys if they could move a few things for him. So after moving a very large table 5 meters to the right of where it was originally positioned, he asked them to move various planks of decking. He wanted them moved from one stack to the other, and after four planks, we decided to ask him what he was doing. From the looks of things, I had presumed he was building an ark, and I was going to suggest I go forth and find two of every kind and help the process along. According to him however, he was building a stage so he could see over the fence. Maybe he was expecting attacks from the enemy? Probably. Anything is possible in this country.

The place itself was very pretty. Located a few miles down from Rosh Hanikra on the Achsiv Beach, we pitched our tents on the lawn and made our way down into the cove for some sunbathing. We had bought a lot of food between all of us and we stocked up the outdoor fridge to its capacity.
Evening came quickly and we all got to work building a large bonfire in the already established bonfire pit.
We brought Shabbat in looking over the ocean and started to cook our food. A few of us decided to cook our potatoes in the fire itself. A difficult task to fish them out again, but once on our plates and covered in cheese, it was definitely worth it and absolutely amazing!
We sat around the bonfire all evening and most people brought out the alcohol.
Surreal bizarre and unique, but that was my weekend, and one of the most memorable yet.

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