July 18, 2020 My 28th birthday was spent among some of the kindest, liveliest and most hospitable people I have ever met, seeing unbelievably beautiful sights and tasting delicious food, all while immersed in a culture which is a far cry from my own. My social memory is not the strongest, and I cannot recall very well some of my other birthdays. This one, however, is indelibly marked upon my memory, as it was a day that I lived my life to its fullest. But how did this happen? How did it come to pass that I spent my birthday in Dagestan, a place that if I were told two years ago I would visit, I wouldn't have believed it? It just so happens that my father was born on the same day as me, July 18th. While I celebrated with newly made friends in Dagestan, my parents celebrated on the other side of the world. It is the qualities and interests of my parents which have had a profound effect on me as a person, more so perhaps than they and I know....