March 30th, 2023
Written by: Julian Groll
After waking up at 6 am we all met at Emma’s place where our journey began. Once the mandatory Mcdonald's stop was out of the way we got through the border crossing no problem. On our first stop past the border, we went to a gas station where we bought snacks and other contraband and immediately noticed that portion sizes were huge. One stop in Olympia and many other stops later, we finally made it to Portland. Since we had some time before check-in at 4:00pm we decided to check out Powell's bookstore, where we all just happened to congregate in the archaeology/anthropology section, where it just so happened that other people attending the SAAs were also gathered.
4:00 pm finally rolled around and we made our way to the hotel. We quickly got ready and made our way over to the convention centre, soon noticing that things were much more casual than we had anticipated (shorts and shirts everywhere!) we made our way back to the hotel after registration and changed. Once changed, we made our way over to Red Robin to have dinner, and we all ordered drinks which were extremely strong (not complaining). Later in the evening, around 9:00 pm, the student social began where we got to mingle with other students. We met an archaeomusicologist from Ecuador and people studying bioarchaeology at San Diego State. Board members circled around the social and gave us drink tickets which were used immediately.
All in all, the first day was pretty tiring, but we got made the most of our day and strongly encourage you all to make your way down to the SAAs next year!