The United Nations and the Red Cross.

Geneva is an amazing city. It's home to diplomacy, humanitarian endeavours, bankers, the extreme rich, and a poor underclass who service the place, with little right to exist. Switzerland has a reputation for ejecting its guest workers if they become a liability. Of course too, Switzerland has conveniently avoided joining the European economic Community, but has hedged its bets nicely. Every time the EU enacts a new policy, it's not unusual for Switzerland to undertake similar reforms so that if it wanted to, it could join the EU tomorrow, without legislative upheaval. 

The inconvenience of the Swiss independence is that if you can't be bothered exchanging your Euros for Swiss Francs, you pay premium. The benefit of independence is that a hell of a lot happens here that is important to the world. The UN is one such thing. We did a tour of the United Nations building and gazed down on a Conference room in use. I spotted the Australian flag, but was unable to identify the representative. I made it my personal mission to let the other people on the tour know that Tony Abbott is largely perceived as ignorant and out of touch, and that his policies on immigration and refugees are an embarrassment to us all (or nearly all). The UN guide was cuttingly aware of our national xenophobia, but some of the tour participants were shocked when they heard about our offshore piracy practices on refugees, and the breaches of the UN charter of rights. 

The UN building in Geneva has a new and old section. The bookshop was worth a visit. I saw a book about Edward Snowden on sale for $20. I was able to download a copy to my iPad Kindle app for 9.99 using the UN free Wifi. High five!

Near to the UN is the Red Cross museum. It's about an hour and a half to tour, including listening to testimonies from refugees and prisoners of war. 

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Scott Morrison's voodoo doll

The missing persons register is haunting. 

Catherine's father was a co-founder of the Red Cross. We found this book about him.

Also near the Red Cross is a replica of a Japanese bell, with a bit of a story.

The story goes that it was a monument in Geneva when a visitor recognised the bell as having disappeared from his home town. Investigation revealed that the bell indeed came from this town, having been acquired by a local collector and donated to the City of Geneva. The city decided to do the right thing and return it to Japan, but the Japanese offered a small statue as an exchange. 

This statue was deemed to be nowhere near the artistic appeal of the bell, so while the statue was accepted, Geneva deemed it not to be an exchange and returned the bell anyway. The Japanese made a replica and donated it to Geneva, and the two towns are now sister cities with an exchange program. Heres the bell and the statue. 

You can decide if they are of equivalent aesthetic value.

The bell will fall soon anyway.. wasn't impressed with this.