It is that time of the year. Reality is setting in that college is ending and it is time to leave the lifelong friends that you made for three months. There is a bright side; vacation. Your parents somehow still have enough money to afford luxurious cross country or international trips despite putting you through college, or maybe working those late shifts allowed you to treat yourself. Vacations, no matter how few you have been on or how many, should never be taken for granted.

My family is fortunate enough to have a grandmother who wants to spend these vacations with each individual grandchild. My oldest sister and cousin took a trip to Italy, my other sister went to the Galapagos Islands and Machu Picchu, my younger sister is going to Greece this summer and I went on the best trip, in my somewhat biased opinion, to Tanzania in Africa. A two week vacation filled with many memories and photos, one that I would give anything to go back to. All photos you are about to see were taken by my less than professional Nikon camera:

Among the amazing scenery, we were fortunate enough to see the big 5:

Forgive me for the low quality image of the Rhino, but we are very fortunate we got to see one, even if it was miles away as they are on the brink of extinction. #stoppoaching

Some other animals were zebras, thousands of them, wildebeest, cheetahs, hippos, ostrich, different types of monkeys, and more.

For four nights we stayed in tents in the ever famous Serengeti, where our shower was from a single bucket of water:

and our toilet flushed to nowhere. Where our nights were filled with animals making noises and roaming around our tents:

And yes, Hyenas raided our camp and ate our soap, but I would take a soap-less tent over never seeing these cuties again:

And these beautiful birds:

As for the question you're probably all wondering, "How close did the animals actually get?" Here's a visual explanation:

We also visited a school and made donations and learned everything there is to know:

Experienced what is like to be part of the Maasai tribe:

Thanks for that picture grandma! Featuring sophomore year me.

Of course I made some friends along the way, I was very lucky with the travel group we had as I was not expecting other younger kids (two other friends not pictured):

So thank you to the amazing tour guides:

And thank you grandparents. Never have I seen my grandma so happy: