One weekend when I was a trainee in Hungary, a group of good friends welcomed me on a trip. They frequently treked in the Tatra Mountains in surrounding Slovakia, as much as a (low-cost) chateau. It was possibly a three-hour drive, one they were utilized to. I must have been more cautious; they were all professional athletes and this walking was a severe undertaking.
However the journey struck an early snafu when we got to the border. My good friends were all Hungarian people, and I wasn’t– and the border crossing they regularly utilized for these journeys was just for residents, for Hungarian and Slovak people. There were border crossings somewhere else for other worldwide people. We were basing on a rural roadway without any human-made structures other than the guard homes and the roadway, pleading (unsuccessfully) with the border guards. There was a basic painted white line throughout the roadway, and I might not cross it. As ridiculous as it sounds, that painted white line was, for me, an overwhelming geopolitical barrier.