In Lisbon I took Uber a few times – Lyft doesn’t operate there – and twice I had non-Portuguese drivers. One was from Cape Verde, a man who spoke excellent English, the result of his having lived in England for a number of years. He was very happy about his move to Portugal, not least because there was a lot less racism there. My other driver was an electrical engineering student from Iran. “You’re American?” he asked, and when I said yes, he fairly shouted, in a voice steeped in irony, “We’re friends!” He then proceeded to speak to me as if we were. He too loved Portugal, and I got the feeling he wished he could stay.
