Motorcycling is an activity that requires perspective. The ability to judge a corner is reliant on it, vanishing points and all that good stuff; but so does travel. You need to recognise where you are, and how far that is from home. Not only in miles travelled but culturally.
A border that is a line on a map may be blurry on the ground as one country fades gently into another, or it can be a stark fence signalling a dramatic change in culture, safety and hierarchy.
On one side of the line being wealthy, English-speaking and European