Last thursday, we finally signed the purchase of the old stable which we intend to convert into a little apartment. We had a meeting with the portuguese lawyers, the real estate agent and the sellers in Castelo Branco, Portugal. It took us longer than expected as there was a minor mistake on the civil status of the couple selling, that error gave us time to talk, get to know us and get an invitation to stop by their place.
Yesterday we decided to give them a call and stop by their summer house, as they live in Lisbon but both are original from Escalos de Baixo, the little village were we are setting our vacation place. Their place is a little quinta with a nice house were they also grow wine, olive trees and some fruit trees.
They welcomed us and showed around while sharing with us a little bit of the story of the village and the area and inviting us to taste their home produced wine and some of the local food from Beira Baixa, the region of the country where we are at.
The couple owning the real estate company who managed the sale was also there. Their parents shared the land they ended legally splitting where they both have their houses now.
We felt al home, talking, sharing anecdotes and tasting all the delicious food. It was a nice ending of our trip as we plan to leave early tomorrow to get home at night.
We did't know what to bring to the "tea meeting" which ended up being a wine pre-dinner reunion. We did not have anything left from home and we are still not familiar with local traditions here, we thought of giving them some of the lemons we picked from our trees in the morning, but most people have orange and lemon trees here, so we decided to bring something from home in our next trip.
This trip has given us the opportunity to make friendship with some locals and it has definitely made a huge difference as we are starting to feel we have a group of people we can rely from now on.
The area is beautiful, I feel in love with the land every time I get around and hopefully we will be able to convert the stable into a little home in the coming months, but having a chance to share out live's with locals is the best way to feel we are part of the community, and I thank every single one of the people we are meeting since we landed here for the first time last summer.
