Whitby Goth Weekend - 26/10/2023 - 30/10/2023 + Bus Crash?! 31/10/2023

26/10/2023 - My parents and I left the house at around 09:00 and arrived in York at 13:30, we did stop at some services on the way there, as well as walk round a designer outlet, where I gave a compliment to two goths and they complimented me back! They said "the goths are beginning to swarm" XD We had our lunch at Maxi's Chinese Restaurant, then checked into our hotel. Originally we were meant to get a park and ride into the city centre but due to the poor weather, we ended up just chilling in our rooms. 

27/10/2023 -  We had our breakfast at the hotel and left at around 10:00 to catch a park and ride bus into the city. We walked round the Shambles, and looked round various shops and market stalls! I bought a bunch of necklaces and pins there. There was this incredible little shop called the Imaginerium, it was so cool! It was filled with various oddities, from taxidermy to hour glasses to terrariums to socks to paintings of anthropomorphic animals (as in like animals in Victorian clothes and like smart suits and such). There was a lot of Alice in Wonderland themed stuff, I bought a coaster and a metal print, I told the till person that I wanted to live in their shop XD It was just so incredible!

Dad went into a camera shop so me and Mum wandered off to look in some charity shops, although we did look in a souvenir shop and because I was wearing a dress and tutu/ petticoat, I accidently backed into some stuff and broke it because I was trying to move out the way :( I don't have very good spatial awareness, especially when I'm wearing big clothes like that ;-; Whilst I was in HMV, there was an emo person working at the counter next to me, their hair was so cool! Also, quite a few liked the way I was dressed, which was very kind of them to say :> Also I saw quite a few metalheads around too, which was really nice to see.

Whilst we were walking around, there was one of those street preachers, telling people how being gay is a sin and what not, which displeased me. A small group of people with a pride flag stood a distance behind the preacher. We passed by the two opposing groups several times and the last time we passed them, the police were now standing by. I'm surprised the preachers never tried to shove Jesus down my throat directly, what with the way I was dressed and that I was wearing my lil goat horns. 

At some point, we went to a park by the river, we were gonna go into the museum that was there but you had to pay to get in, so we just wandered around the park and took some photos on Dad's new camera. The park had mesh and wire sculptures dotted around to look like ghosts. We walked along the river to get back to the town and it was very very muddy, due to the recent flooding. 

We then went to Pizza Express and had a nice meal in there, then we headed to one of the ghost walks. It was £5 a head and about an hour long, it wasn't very good because most of the stories just weren't very scary and we just spent most of it walking round a housing estate rather than the cobbled streets. It was really crap to be honest. 

28/10/2023 - We had our breakfast then check out of the hotel at around 10:00 (hell, my makeup took so long and I kept messing it up), we arrived in Whitby at about 11:00 but there was a massive queue at the park and ride to get onto the bus, but wow! There were so many goths (obviously), so many variations, everyone looked incredible! Dad had to go pick up the keys for the holiday home at 15:00 and due to the massive queue, there was no point in him coming with us on the park and ride, and he couldn't drive into the town because it was gridlocked. So he stayed behind and parked up in a layby, whilst Mum and I hopped on the bus and walked up to the leisure centre to walk round the stalls that had been set up there, and oh boy, was it packed! There was so much stuff, and so many people! 

I got a corset, poet shirt and a black bell sleeve top, and surprisingly, my mum even bought stuff! She got some vintage bits, as in genuine vintage pieces from like the Victorian times O_O She got, I think, two tops and a jacket. 

We then wandered back into the town and looked round some of the charity shops, one of which had two men stood in the window with no clothes on but holding cardboard signs covering their bits, and I'm pretty sure one of the signs said that they would lift up their signs if you donated to the charity XD One of the shops we looked in was called Pandemonium, I got a skirt in there but I need to add some elastic or something to it because it is waaaay too big, I couldn't really see in the shop what size it was because it was so dark and I couldn't find a label on it either whilst I was in the shop. That's something I did notice during WGW (Whitby Goth Weekend), a lot of the clothes being sold there were like medium to xl/ 10-20, some of them even bigger, a lot of the clothes were too big and I don't yet know how to modify things and tailor them to my size. 

When Mum and I had walked round the shops, we tried to find the whale bones and the Sophie Lancaster bench but we walked up a dead end and were too tired to carry on uphill, so we just headed back down to the bus and train station. By this point, Dad had picked up the keys, so we decided that we'll have some fish and chips (because that is basically the only food they have in Whitby, other than like pie and chips), and go back to the holiday home and wait for the doors to open for the gig at the pavilion. Whilst Mum was getting food, I was just waiting around. A photographer wanted to take a picture of me! I didn't really know what to do, it didn't help that my outfit was obscured by my coat (it was just so cold, so any pictures of me will probably not be great because you can't see my outfit -_-), but they seemed happy enough!

Our holiday home was... not great... it seemed okay to start with but the more you looked at it, the worse it got. There was mud on the floor in the kitchen-living area, I don't think the floors had been mopped since whoever last stopped here, the glass in the windows and doors wasn't double glazed and there was a gap under the front door so what little heat that was in the area we were stopping in was just escaping, there was mould growing on the back of the curtains, I found a slug in the bathroom, and well... The bathroom situation was just abysmal. There was only one bathroom, which you could only get to by going through my room, and the bathroom itself had 0 space, the door was nearly hitting the sink when you opened it! Our holiday home was part of a big house, we were in just in one small section round, under the back of the house, it looked as though our area was like a converted storage area or something. There was actually two holiday homes in this house, there was ours and another one located somewhere else in the house, there was a door in my parents room that lead to the other holiday home. The area of the house, the front bit, which the owner lives in had double glazed windows, but the holiday home bits had old windows that just let all the heat out! This place may have been okay in the summer, but during autumn/ winter, not good! And it was super expensive! 

My dad and I got to the gig at about 18:30 I think, but the doors opened at 18:00, luckily the first band didn't start until 19:00. This was my first standing gig, so I was looking forward to being able to dance a little. We looked at the merch stalls, Dad got two bracelets and I bought a t-shirt and pin from the Sophie Lancaster stall, and a WGW/ Tomorrow's Ghost Festival t-shirt. Dad didn't know about Sophie Lancaster, so I briefly explained to him what happened to here, and I will do the same now. Sophie and her boyfriend were both goths and one night whilst they were hanging out in a park at night, they were attacked by a group of teenagers and Sophie unfortunately died trying to protect her boyfriend. The Sophie Lancaster Foundation was formed in her honour to help educate people on hate crime. If you want more details, check out their website, there's also a drama documentary on BBC iPlayer :3

Auger came on at 19:00 and they were really good! I really enjoyed them! When they finished their set, we went to go find their merch stall but we couldn't find it :< Salvation were next and genre wise, not quite my bag, but they were still good. Before the next set, I sat down next to a lady and my dad went off somewhere, and the lady asked if I was okay, she asked if my dad was my dad or some pervert ('cause my dad and I look nothing alike), which was very kind of her! The goth community is so caring! Then The March Violets came on and they were great! They were my favourite of all the bands! I tried to dance to every song but I was stood in the crowd and people were stood quite close to me so I couldn't really move much. After they finished, I went and sat on the floor on the side of the stage and two people came up to me and asked if I was okay, everyone there was very kind and they look out for one another! Dad and I decided to stay for the first song by The 69 Eyes, as we were both quite tired and my feet and back were a bit sore, probably due to not being used to standing for so long and poor posture. We got back to the holiday home at around 11:15. 

29/10/2023 - We got into Whitby, we managed to find a parking space at the leisure centre. Mum, Dad and I walked down to the pavilion to check out the stalls there. There wasn't many, but they were nice, one of the stalls had very elaborate cakes! Dad got a bracelet and a photographer wanted to take a picture of me and Mum! 

We then walked back to the leisure centre and it started to rain, so everyone was hastily trying to get inside. It was much quieter on the Sunday compared to the Saturday, but maybe it was because it was still kinda early, either that or the goths had just gone home as Friday and Saturday night had the gigs. When we were walking into one of the rooms, there was someone with a horse head mask on and holding a sign that read "Free shrugs" and every time someone walked past, they would shrug XD Best person there! I got a few charms (as I want to get into jewellery making (even though I don't have time lmao)), a necklace, a ring and a smaller handbag. Dad got another bracelet. 

After that, we looked at the whale bones. I paid my respects to Sophie at the bench dedicated to her. We then wandered into town but it was still raining, and my arm got soaked! We took shelter in one of the arcades as I had only ever been into the one at Eastbourne (which wasn't very good). We managed to find the pinball machines and I got to physically play pinball for the first time! It was super fun! I wasn't very good but I really enjoyed it! Too bad I only had a pound. We went and ate fish and chips in a pub, unfortunately my arm was not drying off, both of my coats (Mum wore my winter coat and I wore my fancy coat) were quite wet and are not waterproof. I don't have any waterproof clothing, even though I live on the cold, wet lump called the UK. 

The rain was still lingering when we looked round The Great Goth shop. We crossed the bridge and looked in Squid Rock, people had to queue up to get in because so many people wanted to go in and the shop was fairly cramped. I got a handkerchief hem skirt and a velvet cloak. 

We then wandered up towards the abbey, stopped in a few shops, then walked up the 199 steps. It was a bit underwhelming because a lot of people had made the steps to be this huge climb, but it was easy! For us at least, the only thing that was tricky was the wet steps and people standing on the stairs which made it annoying to go up or down because people were in the way. 

When we got to the abbey, we found out it had just closed! We got there at 15:10 and it closed at 15:00 due to the weather, so we bought some bits in the souvenir shop and took some pictures around the graveyard and of what we could see of the abbey. 

We then walked back down to the town and looked at the approaching weather. It was sunny when we got down to the quay, the clouds were pink as the sun was setting and there was a rainbow, meanwhile the waves were crashing over parts of the quay, so some of it got closed off. Within a short span of time, the clouds turned grey and the waves were only getting larger. Some kid was playing chicken in the waves, in the bit where the small boats could be hauled up, and his (presumably) mother was just stood there watching! I said to Mum how irresponsible whoever this kid's parents are, that this kid could get swept into the sea and die, and the woman just glared at me, bruh you're the one being irresponsible! The waves continued to get worse so we headed back to the holiday home.

30/10/2023 - We had to be out of the holiday home by 10:00, and we were out by 09:00. We weren't sorry to leave! There was a traffic jam on the way home, so we got home at around 16:00.

31/10/2023 - Me and around 15 other students were still in the college bus and we were almost back in our town when we suddenly jolted stop! We had skidded off the road and into a bush! Luckily no one was hurt! Everyone had to move to the front of the coach and we had to sit and wait until a rescue person came along. Two of the wheels were in the air! I'm not sure how long we were waiting in the bus, but eventually someone came and helped us out of the coach. We waited on the side of the road, you could see there was masses of mud on the road and how slanted the bus was! Things could've easily been a lot worse. Luckily, everyone got home safely.