The apartment is in a primarily residential neighborhood, which seemed safe but was decidedly working class. The building sits nearly all the way up a very steep hill, which made for a tiring hike, so be aware if you have trouble walking. Supposedly there was an elevator or escalator on the other side of the building, but we couldn't find it. That said, the apartment was conveniently located within a short distance from the subway and bus, so it wasn't especially isolated. The apartment is located in the basement of an apartment building, and there was a pretty bad musty smell. The shower drain backed up very quickly, the couch in particular was pretty worn, and the bottom sheet on the bed was too short to fit the mattress correctly. We just weren't able to relax in that space, it wasn't very inviting. There is a small seating area for our apartment outside in back, which was kind of nice to have, but the chairs were very dirty and had to be wiped off, and the tenants upstairs threw their cigarette butts out their back windows, so the space became littered while we were there. The bathroom in particular is so small that there is a notch crudely cut in the edge of the door to make room for the sink, and the shower stall is so narrow that an average-sized man can barely fit inside. The check-in experience was uncomfortable and stressful, and I can't help but think that it could have been avoided with better communication. Natali had asked me ahead of time when we would be there, and I told her the time that the flight was arriving and offered a guess about when we would be at the apartment. To be fair, that was MY mistake, I should not have tried guessing on an actual time, since I had never been to Barcelona before and didn't know how quickly traffic moves. The baggage was late getting off the plane and then the airport bus was so crowded we couldn't get on the first bus and had to wait. Then the traffic moved slowly through the crowded city. Instead of getting there at 1:30 as I had guessed, we arrived a little after 2:30. Natali kept sending me texts demanding to know why we were late, complaining that we should have taken a taxi instead (at 3x the cost of the bus, btw) and half-threatening to leave before we could get there. I understand now that she needed to get back to her regular job, but we were not told in advance that she had a tight window of available time. Perhaps she could have waited to hear that we were on the way from the airport before leaving work and heading to the apartment? As newly-arrived foreigners in an unfamiliar city, we did our best to navigate and get there as quickly as possible, and we didn't appreciate the pressure. As it turned out, Natali did...