May 25th 1992
Frasier, still lacking in the grooming standards instilled into us by our father, and I arrived in Roma (a.k.a. Rome). We caught our transfer flight to Catania where we rented a nice vehicle called a Nissan Skyline. Luckily I had brought my nasal spray. Frasier insisted on rolling his window down for fresh air, yet there was an unseen whisper of ash in the air from Mount Etna. Though our flight to Italy was long, Frasier still insisted upon driving the entire length of our vehicular journey from the east coast of Sicily to the west. It was great catching up with him. He mentioned out "interesting" his friend Woody's wedding was and then went on to tell me how his favorite bar had a major fire. He wanted to stay and help with the clean-up, but it had gotten to the point where they needed to step aside to let the construction crew do the restoration.
We hit heavy traffic in Palermo, but made up for some lost time when we cleared the city. Marsala was wonderful… wonderfully confusing. The layout of the city was aggravating. With the consideration of the way Frasier was driving, it was surprising that we found our hotel at all. Our hotel was the Best Western. It was rated as a four star, but in Europe, with the consideration of the standards of the hotels which are in the United States, we tend to always conveniently disregard a star.
It was a nice place. There was a church around the corner from our hotel and down the street was an authentic dining facility called "Divino Rosso", which translates to "Devine Red". We sat out at one of the tables in the street. The weather was quite captivating for dining. I ordered the Roasted Chicken Cutlet and "the Casa Bianco Vino" (The house white wine).
I asked Frasier how Lilith was doing. He tipped his glass of wine, taking down gulps until the last dropped touched his tongue. Then he swallowed and replied, "As pale as ever."
Then he asked about Maris. "Touché" I responded and we shared a good laugh.