一家咖啡馆,两个国家

在巴勒这个小镇上,有一家咖啡馆,你的咖啡放在一个国家,你的那块蛋糕却放在另一个国家。这座小镇横跨比利时和荷兰的边界,与大多数边界不同,这条边界并不会礼貌地绕开任何人的房子。相反,它直直地穿过房屋,用白色十字和金属钉子标出,沿着街道延伸,穿过门槛,穿过商店的货架底下,也直接穿过咖啡馆的桌子下面。

There is a cafe in the small town of Baarle where your coffee sits in one country and your slice of cake in another. The town straddles the border between Belgium and the Netherlands, and unlike most borders, this one refuses to politely detour around anyone's house. Instead, it cuts straight through them, marked by white crosses and metal studs that run along the streets, across doorsteps, beneath shop shelves, and directly under cafe tables.

这一切的来历可以追溯到几个世纪以前。当地的领主曾经像孩子交换卡片一样,交易和赠送一块块土地,结果就形成了一座由不规则地块拼接而成的小镇。一座座比利时领土的小岛,散落在荷兰境内;更奇怪的是,在一些比利时的地块里,又嵌着更小的荷兰领土的小岛。从来没有人费心去把这种格局理清,于是这条边界就这样保留了下来,从此在日常生活中蜿蜒穿行。

The explanation is centuries old. Local lords once traded and gifted parcels of land much as children trade cards, and the result is a town stitched together from mismatched patches. Small islands of Belgian territory sit scattered inside the Netherlands, and, in a further twist, tinier islands of Dutch land sit inside some of those Belgian ones. Nobody ever bothered to tidy the arrangement up, so the border has simply persisted, zigzagging its way through everyday life ever since.

这座小镇早就与自己的怪异达成了和解。关于房屋的规则很简单:你家的前门通向哪个国家,你就住在哪个国家,不过有几栋房子因为有两扇门,严格来说拥有两个地址。在那家咖啡馆里,你可以在一个国家端起咖啡杯,再把它放在另一个国家里,这也许使它成为地球上唯一一个,仅仅靠递一下糖罐,就能出国的地方。

The town has long since made peace with its own strangeness. The rule for houses is straightforward enough: whichever country your front door opens into is the country you live in, although a few houses, having two doors, technically carry two addresses. At the cafe, you can hold your cup in one country and set it down in the other, which makes it, quite possibly, the only place on earth where you can leave the country simply by passing the sugar.