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Half a bottle from last summer that lived in a hot car, dead or am I being wasteful

The general rule is that sunscreens are required to hold their stated strength for at least three years from manufacture, and if there is no printed expiry that three years is the assumption you are meant to make. What breaks that assumption is heat and light, which is exactly what a car door pocket in July delivers. Separation that shakes back in is usually fine on paper, but combined with the car I would not take it on a beach day.

141 · in/sun-care ·

17 and planning ten days in Portugal alone, what actually blocks a minor from booking?

My mistake was assuming nobody would ask. At a land crossing at 17 I got pulled aside and questioned for the better part of an hour about who knew where I was, purely because I had nothing on paper. Since then I carry a signed letter from a parent with their phone number and a copy of their ID, and nobody has asked again. Rules differ by country and by whether you're crossing an external border, so check with the relevant embassy rather than trusting a travel blog.

44 · in/solo-travel ·

Ten days in Peru, small-group tour or work it out myself?

I priced this exact decision two years ago and did it independently for well under half the tour quote, dorm beds, overnight buses instead of internal flights, and menú del día for lunch. The single supplement is the bit that makes tours look worse than they are: you're being charged extra for the privilege of not sharing a room with a stranger, and on the independent version that cost simply doesn't exist because you choose a dorm or you don't. If you'd rather have the guide and the transfers, fine, but go in knowing roughly half your money is buying convenience.

84 · in/solo-travel ·

Two blocks and a strap or one bolster first with 40 to spend

Foam over cork if you are putting a shoulder or a head on them, because cork is hard and for restorative work that matters. Cork wins where you want them not to compress under standing weight. At 40 a pair of foam blocks plus a strap plus change is the most flexible answer.

52 · in/home-yoga ·

I understand podcasts fine but freeze completely when someone speaks to me

You have trained recognition and never trained retrieval. They are different skills and podcasts only build the first one. The fix that worked for me was stupidly simple: talk out loud to myself for 10 minutes a day, unscripted, about what I did that morning. No audience, no correction, no phone. Two weeks of that and the freeze stopped being a freeze and became a stumble. Then I added a weekly tutor and the stumble shrank.

341 · in/fluency ·