Borders
 

The title says it all :D Post pictures of international borders here.

I'll start. Here's the heavily fortified border between the Netherlands and Belgium :haha:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._caf%C3%A9.jpg
wikipedia

Interesting. It appears to be a single business on both sides of the border. Is this common?

Yes, there are plenty of restaurants or shops, particularly on the Dutch-Belgian and the German-French border where for example half the tables are in one country, the other half in another.

That's IMO pretty much how borders (at least between developed countries) should look like everywhere in the 21st century. :yes:

Crossing borders in continental Europe (Schengen-Zone) is exactly as driving from one US state to the other these days, you'll pass a sign and that's it.

http://images.travelpod.com/users/go...-crossingx.jpg
http://images.travelpod.com/users/go...-crossingx.jpg

Only the UK and Ireland still insist on their stupid border controls.

Here's a map of the Schengen-Zone (dark blue) which consists of 22 of the 27 EU countries as well as Norway, Iceland and since last December also Switzerland.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...nt_map.svg.png

All internal borders in the dark blue area have been demolished and there are no more border checks.

On the Swedish-Finnish border there's even a golf-course were some tees is on one side of the border and some greens on the other.

http://www.haparandatornio.com/image...%C3%A4nsen.jpg http://www.haparandatornio.com/image.../Golfbanan.jpg
source

LMAO!! That's pretty wild. Here in the US, on the border with Canada there are some homes that are cut in half by the border. There is one that was in National Geographic Magazine once that was intresting. The border ran through the Master bedroom. One half of the bed was American the other half Canadian.

I don't have to tell you what the southern border is like here.

I was in Europe 2 years ago and crossed the Austria-Slovenia border by train, and even though Slovenia is an EU member and in the Schengen-Zone, the train was stopped for 10 minutes at the border station and all passports were checked and stamped by Slovene border guards(one was pretty cute).

That's because the Eastern European countries (including Slovenia) are only part of the Schengen Zone since December 2007...slightly less than 2 years ago. If you would take the same train today, there would be no more controls. And even back then passports were only required for non-EU citizens like yourself, EU citizens just needed ID cards. But as I said it's no longer the case.

So at what point does Europe become federal enough to be considered one country, like the U.S. or the U.K.?

Going from Italy to Switzerland they were checking bags and passports on the train, we didn't stop though.

Until a couple years ago, getting into the US was as easy as showing a birth certificate and drivers license. Now it is like trying to get into China. :( The borders here are almost entirely water, people have on many occasions accidentally gone into the other country without realizing it just by crossing what they thought was a normal river or lake. Now there are unmanned flying drones patrolling it so I guess you have to be more careful now.

Not sure why this is in the Transportation forum. I'm moving it to City Discussions.

The southern border of the US and Mexico (in San Diego):

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3552/...88fb1357_b.jpg

http://www.britannica.com/blogs/wp-c...009/06/dmz.jpg
britannica.com

The shit is going on here?

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/5901/23958915.jpg

They were drunk.

Over the summer I went from Gothenburg to Oslo and border control (I think they were border control) came on the bus asking everyone if they were living in Sweden. I said no and they checked my passport. I think it was just a random stop; a buddy of mine has made that trip several times and he said that was the only time he's been stopped there.

We have similar stops throughout the Southwest; you're simply asked if you're a U.S. citizen or not.

Traveling between France and Spain last month, i had French police sweep the train once doing passport checks, followed by Spanish police sweep the train minutes later. They actually stopped the train in the middle of nowhere the second time, and the Spanish Police took the girl sitting behind me off for having no ID or passport on her (she appeared European and spoke French). This was the only place I ever encountered something like that traveling in Western Europe.

^ The French and Spanish governments have been collaborating on their investigations of ETA more and more over the past couple of years. That's the only reason I can think of for a sweep like that.