I learn so many things on Facebook. I mean, aside from who’s relationship is complicated and how many of my friends I have to hate due to politics (the answer is all of them). Sometimes, I learn real schooling type stuff.

For example, the other day, this picture came up:

I love cobblestone…

…with the caption “The border between the Netherlands and Belgium.” Awe! Isn’t that sweet? I immediately reposted, because with all the bickering and talk about states filing petitions to sucede seceed secede and putting up fences around various borders, it’s nice to see a place where people don’t need barriers and shutting others out.

A friend of mine commented on the post “That must be a legal nightmare for the owner, even if they are both Shengen countries.” It raised a whole bunch of questions for me. What town was this taken in? Where along the border is this? What is the back story? How strict are the police from one country when dealing with the other? How far through the town does this border go? Is it just this one place, or are there more? And does this place serve Belgium waffles?

I did my research, and it’s so much cooler than I originally thought.

There is an area in the Netherlands that I will call the Baarle area. In this area are two municipalities, the Baarle-Nassau of the Netherlands, and Baarle-Hertog, the Belgium enclaves that pocket this area of the Netherlands with Belgium. There are 22-24 separate chunks of Belgium completely separated from the rest of Belgium, existing in the Netherlands area.

Of all the maps, I picked this one because it actually shows where Belgium and the Netherlands are in relation to each other. You’re welcome, stupid Americans!

And to mark the border? These white crosses on the sidewalks, and metal studs in the roads:

Get it? Crossing the border? Huh? Huh? CROSSING?

Wait a minute! those metal studs take a 90 degree angle and keep going down the street! And THEN they take a 90 degree angle and go past that restaurant we saw earlier (I still don’t know if they serve Belgium waffles). Turns out, the borders are all sorts of wacky. They go down the middle of streets:

Which cop gives the speeding ticket?

It goes through buildings, both outside:

This is a beer distributor. BUT IS IT BELGIUM?!?!?

and inside:

And who pays the storage fees?

Borders go straight through homes. The way they determine what country a building is in is by where the front door is. One blogger posted about a guy who was upset with his tax rates in one country, so he moved his front door and became a citizen of the other country.

Also, for a while, one of the countries had a curfew. So when the curfew hit, several restaurants were able to just move the patio seating around the corner and continue serving.

And apparently, police work together out of one office. The Belgians take care of the electricity and the telephones, and the Netherlands are in charge of water and gas. They split everything. You could even say that when it comes to running the area, the two municipalities… “go Dutch.”

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!