The bus pulled up to the curb next to the New White Palace Hotel, our abode for the week we were to spend in Makkah. We were all so tired from our journeys but energized as we looked out the tinted bus windows trying to glimpse anything of the Haram Shareef. Down the hill we saw parts of a mosque minaret and wall. It seemed like a medieval castle or fortress with hundreds of lights around it. All of Makkah looks like any other middle eastern city: dark, tan brick buildings and hotels, hundreds of people about dressed in thobes, kufis, abayas, hijab and niqab, streets lined with stores and cars, people selling things on sidewalks, sleeping on sidewalks..:)