Hey Robert, I feel your pain! Listening and understanding is my biggest challenge and so "having to" get familiar with expressions like ¿Puedes creértelo? is a useful, if not painful, exercise. Hopefully after many repetitions, words and expressions become familiar enough that we no longer have to strain to understand them. Cheers!

My biggest problem was with La verdad es que me quedé gratamente sorprendido. I thought he was saying La verdad esquema quedé ...  obviously in retrospect that doesn't make nearly as much sense.  I just retired from doing medical transcription and my goof reminds me of newbies we trained who would hear baloney amputation when the doctor dictated below-knee amputation.