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Several days after landing in Glasgow, I boarded a northbound bus with my small student group. Although I was in the midst of my pre-graduate days/daze, I stridently refused to be swept into a rose-hued view of Scotland's much-mythicized past. I watched the post-industrial tenements fade into the Highland's lochs, mist and mountains with skepticism. OK, so maybe a small part of me succumbed to the grandeur -- the terrain looking like the backdrop to "MacBeth" or sea monsters, huge and foreboding -- but I was still attentive to the corner shops with their Budweiser signs. I heard the American pop hits blaring from cars with Scottish plates and noticed those bucolic homes crowned with TV satellites.

The further north we climbed, the more severe the land became. Land spewed forth: rocks, edges and distant slanting storms, a chorus of grays and high greens, the trumpeting patches of blue. By the time we reached the outer shores, the towns grew less frequent, the familiar petrol stations and McDonald's more random. We crossed Northern waters, hushed by cumbrous skies, and traversed quiet islands tucked close to the mainland. Boarded on a massive rusted ferry, I peered into the gray, unsuccessfully searching for my final destination, the Outer Hebrides. The sun, already elusive for the majority of our journey, had since given up and the muted hues took on darker tones. It was probably no later than 5 p.m., but the weight of the day made it feel later, and I could no longer make anything out. The wind moved west and my mind lay empty, dumbed by so much space.

It was in this stupor that I got off the ferry in Tarbert on the Isle of Harris. Wet, tired and hunched over with an overstuffed backpack, I slugged my way from the small town to our hotel. Even in the dark, you could tell the hotel was not for local consumption. Like a pompous relative, it held itself straight in the sideward rain. Its freshly painted walls stood out from the surrounding rocks rather than settling amongst them. This made sense to me. Even though this dreary weather did not make the island look particularly appealing, knowing tourism's never-whetted appetite for the remote and romantic, this hotel fit right in with my world view.

I collapsed into a Victorian room with my traveling partner, Maggie. She was also an American, though she would shudder to be called that. Maggie had already traveled extensively and developed considerable scorn for the American abroad. A wee girl with a mass of dark red hair, an Irish complexion and a feline presence, she hid her nationality well. I was significantly less subtle. Larger framed and with a louder manner, I fit more the mold. Despite these differences, we bonded over our disdain for the rest of our group and our determination to experience the non-postcard Scotland.

This common focus must have been strong because I cannot remember any other motivation for us to leave our plush room on that otherwise unaccommodating evening. The night whipped cold and the rain blew horizontal. The hotel was probably less removed than it appeared, but it felt like an impressive trek into that town. We fought towards the only lights we could see and eventually found ourselves on Tarbert's main drag: a couple of crumbled buildings and a gray, two-story hotel.

We spotted locals stumbling from a pub below the hotel and gravitated to it. In what I would learn was a tough trick to pull off, we tucked into the small pub almost unnoticed. The scene I happened upon was one I hadn't known to be possible. Mouths opened in large laughs, flutes and accordions played in accompaniment. Thick with smoke, music and bodies, the pub was in full festivities. Lager spilled over the edges of toasting pints and rough hands negotiated cigarettes, drams and back slaps. And yes, almost everyone wore a kilt.

Maggie and I stayed close to the wall, not quite sure what we'd sauntered into. Unlike any other island pub I'd ever entered, we were not glared at or attacked like a foreign antibody. Furthermore, when we were acknowledged, we were quickly folded into the celebrations. Enthusiastic introductions were exchanged and pints were passed to our empty hands. We learned that the impetus for the evening was the wedding of the proprietor's daughter, now a former Macleod, and this was the after-party. The fact that half the town of Tarbert was related to the Macleods explained the size of the party and preponderance of identical kilts.

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