I hope they don’t stop us at Border Control tomorrow at the airport. We owe the too-trusting  Swiss 12 Swiss Francs for two separate infarctions of public transportation rules. But it’s not entirely our fault. The deal is you can travel anywhere in metro Geneva (Zone 10) for three Francs but your ticket is only good for an hour.

The first time we bought our tickets at a major terminal – Bel-Aire, right down the hill from our apartment and across the street from our now favorite breakfast café. That got us, seven stops later, to the International Red Cross Museum. No problem. Coming back three hours later there was no ticket machine at the bus stop. I offered the driver six Francs, but he shook his head and waved his hand. Didn’t matter, no one checks tickets in this country as far as I can tell.

After returning to the Bel-Aire station we decided to walk along the waterfront to see one more time the Geneva Jet d’Eau. We came to a boat landing with people standing in line to get on a yellow taxi boat. Why not? We climbed on, ticketless, again planning on fessing up to the captain, but no one seemed to care. It was in fact a taxi. It went across the mouth of the lake, turned around and came back – ten minutes total. We got off, richer for the experience but leaving Geneva poorer for their trusting attitude.

The Red Cross Museum is quite impressive. The message is that there are billions of people on this earth who, due to war, natural disasters and poverty, lead miserable lives. It’s not only physical suffering but the loss of dignity, dislocation and disconnection from family. The ICRC, working with national Red Cross and Red Crescent groups (Red Crescent in non-Christian regions), attempts to address these problems.

The founding light behind the Red Cross was Henry Dunant. He had witnessed in 1859 the carnage that resulted from the Battle of Solferino in the second Italian war of independence. That experience led him to form a “Committee of Five” who founded the Red Cross in Geneva in 1863. The organization played an important role in WWI and WWII, although it was criticized for not taking an active position regarding the Nazi holocaust.

The Geneva Conventions, adopted by 55 nations in 1949 gave the Red Cross a legal basis in international law to perform its role, especially in combat situations. The U.S. signed the 1949 convention in 1955 but has never signed Protocol I of 1972 nor Protocol II of 2005. The application of the 1949 convention to the War on Terror, including interrogation techniques and treatment of enemy combatants (e.g., Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo) have been burning questions since 911.

We had a picnic lunch outside on the museum’s picnic tables, eating up the last of our cheese and crackers and a couple of oranges.

The bus ride gave us a view of Geneva outside the Old Town, which is picturesque and laden with high-end shopping is not the “real” Switzerland. The impression we get is that Geneva and the rest of “real” Switzerland we’ve seen has been neat, clean and free from homelessness and slums. Such problems may exist somewhere but not in our travels.

The other big achievement today was completion of three loads of laundry. Judy’s ensured a clean start to our 12 days in Israel. The Airbnb here, Spiez and Salzburg have had washing machines that have kept us nice to be near lo these many days.

And of course we had to make one last trip to the Longest Wooden Bench in the WORLD, if only to see who could take the best picture. We shoot; you be the judge.

So, this is our last day in Switzerland. We’ve been on the road for 28 days now and while we’ve loved the Alps and especially Switzerland, we’re ready for the move to Israel. We Have taken much of our luggage to the rental car and all that is left is to find a gas station, the rental car return spot and Terminal 1. Then it’s up to Lufthansa to do the rest.

Oh, one more task before we leave. We’re going to have our Farewell Fondu at our neighborhood restaurant. It’s our fourth go on fondu, but who, other than the scales, is counting?