The picture of people standing at the bar reminded me of a Dylan Thomas description of one of his flights (as recounted by John Malcom Brinnin). He was too shy to talk to any of his fellow passengers, so he spent most of the overnight flight in the bar drinking and talking to the bartender.
I first read that on an eight-hour flight over the Atlantic. There was a bar? Where you could sit and talk to a bartender? The only chance I got to talk to the really nice flight attendant who kept bringing me free scotch was when I was deplaning and he shook my hand and said, “Don’t drink too much this Christmas.”
Yes, it was more expensive and you were more likely to die and there were sharp edges, but it sounds like it wasn’t all bad.
