Wow.
Pretty men everywhere.
Like, really just everywhere.
A few pretty little anecdotes for you, to contemplate while you wait to see the goodness for yourself.

Once, standing outside of the Chueca club called Garbo (lowkey, often not very full, decent bar) I was smoking and chatting as I often did in front of bars at 4 in the morning. Nothing was out of the usual. Garbage men in their big truck were coming up the street, grabbing garbage cans as they worked their way towards us. Again, nothing unusual.
And then as the garbage truck pulled in front of me and my best friend we both fell completely silent.
Whatever vapid trash you talk in front of a club at 4 am with your lifelong best friend, it cut out. Because descending from the back of the garbage truck was honestly one of the most beautiful men either of us had ever seen.
In the US, think of what your average local garbage man looks like. Yeah? Ok. An average local man, i.e. he’s not warming up anybody’s dreams late at night. This guy, probably about our age, was golden and fit and had wild dark green eyes and was probably very aware of how handsome he was because when he caught us gawking (open-mouthed on my part) at him, he just smirked. Revealing a perfect picket fence of teeth, of course. And he was a garbage man, not a super model. Like this is normal in Madrid.

Another example of a guy in a laborious job being wild handsome: at my local metro stop, there were a few engineers, I guess you’d call them? Like, the guys who kept the literal stories of escalators running (some stations are as deep as 4 stories underground, so a lot of escalators, really).
I appreciated these guys mucho, because days the escalators weren’t running were pretty horrendous because I hate stairs after step, like, 25.
One day I’m just curiously glancing over at what these guys are working on on one of the power panels for the escalators and the engineer who turns around has slicked-to-one-side hair like a raven’s wing, slightly wavy from the sweat of wrenching something loose inside the power panel. Skin a bit shiny from it, the color of a roasted almond, and warm, inviting chocolate eyes. I think I tripped on my own foot just looking at him. He laughed a little bit at that, while making eye contact. I let out a strangled noise I have not made before nor since. I know guys in labour jobs in the US can be handsome, but on the whole– or stereotypically– that is not the general thought. I think of overweight poorly socially adjusted men doing both of these jobs– which is biased and rude of me, but true to my thoughts. Then, here I am in Madrid, and two of the best looking men I saw in five months were a garbage man and an escalator technician. Okay.

Gorgeous men really are just everywhere.
Once I saw two super fit, quite well dressed men, who were both walking arm-in-arm with their girlfriends kiss each other on the mouth as they said goodbye. It was like I had stumbled on to the indecent part of the internet, but NO, I was just trying to get to Kilometro 0 to meet some friends. The cultural differences in physical comfort just make the pretty men prettier.

On any given morning commute on the metro, someone so beautiful it makes your chest ache and your mouth water could step onto the train.
One such morning, a day I had class early so I caught the rush and the trains were packed so full some people couldn’t fit on at the stops, I was standing in front of two older ladies and a boy with green eyes like fresh herbs stepped into the car to stand across from me. There were probably eight bodies wedged between us but I kept sneaking glances at him. His hair was buzzed short on the sides and left long on top, as is the current trend. He was in a stripped shirt and a brown jacket.
After a few stops of trying to decide if it was worth it to say something to him, the train halts at a station, but instead of coming to a smooth stop, it jerked. Then I relaxed… only for it to jerk again and my balance get thrown off. And I was thrown into the lap of the older Madrileña behind me.
Immediately I exploded into a river of apologies, none of which she was having, and to make it worse I was using very formal South American forms of apology– outing myself as a foreigner, just adding insult to her injury. ALSO as I went to stand, I stepped on her foot in the crowded train car. Ugh.
Finally, I stood fully- a little dazed mind you- and there was the green eyed boy looking right at me from across the train car, pressing his lips together trying to keep a laugh in.
I widened my eyes at him and shook my head, made a “yikes” face, and we both let out silent laughs. He got off at the next stop. I never talked to him. I looked for him every morning the rest of my time in Madrid. Nothing.

And that’s not even the half of it.
Madrid is just teaming with super hot young men. It’s great. Beautiful art. The beautiful game. Beautiful men and women. A win win win.