Mercede's place was exactly what we were looking for! Our hotel the night before was swank and modern and shiny, but for our next stop, here, we wanted REAL and AUTHENTIC. Like other visitors have said, she offers you homemade sangria around 7-9pm. She gives you a large map and points out local spots. We visited two of her restaurant suggestions (Frankie Gallo Cha Cha Cha "best pizza in Barcelona" and My Fucking Restaurant) and really enjoyed them.
The place is crumbling, but, again, that's what we wanted. :)
The favorite aspects are:
1. Our room had a private outdoor shower and we used it every day to get clean in the glorious sunshine.
2. During ~daylight hours (until 9pm I think) you are allowed to go through the small door to walk onto the roof, and look down on (Plaça Reial) Plaza Real, arguably the nicest plaza in Barcelona, on par with Roma and Venice.
3. Did I mention the Sangria? ;)
Breakfast is simple but helpful.... a WIDE selection of nut, animal, and oat milks, which I really appreciated.
She offered portable mobile device to provide Wi-Fi to (pronounced "wee-fee" in Europe) your cell phone or laptop that we were never able to connect to but have no doubt it works (we purchased SIM card for our cell phone so we had cellular data already).
Note that it's about five sets of stairs to climb, but no problem, since we walked about 60 miles over a week in Barcelona, anyway.
The plaza was a bit loud in the evening but we really enjoyed the ambiance.. we felt we were in the middle of the action... didn't affect our sleeping any anyway.
Would return to stay again in a heartbeat! Highly recommended!!! Thank you Mercedes!