Return from Holland

I'm back! Barring some adventures (lost baggage that I'm still waiting for, almost missing a plane, delays left right and centre and terrible turbulence) all went well in Holland. I was interested to see that the announcements in Schiphol airport (Amsterdam's airport) were much clearer than those in other airports - I could understand every word.

All in all I didn't do too badly. I did have a difficulty a couple of times but this was mostly because of pronounciation of words by people unaccustomed to speaking in English, rather than misunderstanding.

New plateau

Just when I thought I'd reached a plateau, I moved up (slightly) this past week. Firstly, phone conferences were slightly better, I struggled badly using a speakerphone but things were slightly better this week. Maybe it was just a case of trying too hard? This was no flash in the pan. My main 'enemy' after the implant has been mobile phones. I can't use the T switch due to interference, so mobile phones were unreachable for me. I tried using the voice automated system on my mobile phone today and I actually understood! Yes, it was in perfect silence and yes, it was a robot, but at least it's an improvement.

Anyway, I'm off to Holland today via Milan, so it should be interesting to see how I manage with announcements in Italian (which I understand but not to the extent of English, obviously) and Dutch (which I don't!!!)

Plateau

Have I reached a plateau? These past few weeks I haven't really noticed any particular improvements. I have heard a few new sounds but I don't think that there's any particular improvement - so, barring any improvements I go through via software changes, I doubt I'll be getting much better than I am now.

Not that I'm complaining, but I do wish I could understand more on phones on hands-free for instance - it's really important for phone conferences for me for work, but I think that's my weakness there.