SUNY Buffalo State presented the last of the “Artists on the Road: Travel As Source of Inspiration Lecture Series” on Thursday, April 14 in Upton Hall. “I Collect Boarding Passes: Ten Trips, Ten Lessons” was the name of the event, and it featured Bhakti Sharma.

Sharma, chair and Associate Professor of interior design, grew up in Northern India. The first time that she boarded an airplane was when she traveled to Arizona to attend Arizona State University in 2004. Since then, Sharma has added Sri Lanka, Spain, Portugal, China, Japan, and parts of North America to her travel list.

The event started with Associate Professor of Design Carol Townsend saying,

“Everyone here is young, and needs to experience all of the different experiences in life.”

Townsend went on to introduce Sharma.

Sharma began the event by introducing the ten life lessons she was going to present throughout the presentation. She first began the discussion by explaining her biggest culture shock, laundry. Sharma explained that in India the concept of laundry is very different than in America, so when she arrived in the United States it was very strange to her how often Americans do laundry.

She then went on to explain the number one rule of traveling, which according to Sharma is to “Never google anything about where you are going.” This is due to the fact that, according to Sharma, if you Google information about where you are going, then you’ll already know what to expect. Not only did she say that it could ruin the experience of traveling, but it gets rid of the unknown excitement and feeling that is in discovering a new place on your own, without Google.

Later on in the event, Sharma explained how she felt homesick after being in the United States for a couple years. Eventually, she took the first flight from the United States to India. This was the first boarding pass that Sharma showed the audience, and it showed that the flight all together was 54 hours long because of delays and separate landings.

Eventually, Sharma ended up in Barcelona, Spain. This is where Sharma discovered another rule of traveling —that in order to have a city all to yourself, you need to wake up as early as possible. When Sharma was in Barcelona, she was able to have “the whole city alone” because she woke up as early as she could.

The event concluded with Sharma making it very clear that we must travel in our lives. Because if we don’t, then we won’t know how different yet similar the world truly is.

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