Cindy, easygoing company in De Pijp

"Give me twenty minutes and a strong coffee and I will be on your time zone." Cindy says things like that and means them. Jet lag is a shared condition in her world rather than an excuse, and she has a real talent for meeting people exactly where the day has left them, whether that is bright and hungry or quietly wrecked by eleven hours in a cabin.

She is 26, 168 centimetres, slim, with long wavy blonde hair, blue eyes and a cheerfulness that survives contact with reality. Yoga keeps her level, sailing keeps her outdoors, and a camera travels with her almost everywhere; she photographs buildings and water and, now and then, the backs of people she likes. Her look is sunny poolside charm, which she manages to carry into a Dutch November without any apparent difficulty.

Home is De Pijp, so her evenings usually start somewhere with a short menu and a long bar, five minutes from the Albert Cuyp and a quick run into the centre. She is sporty without being competitive about it and easygoing in a way that makes plans simple to change halfway through. Nobody has ever left an evening with Cindy feeling underdressed or rushed. Her mornings belong to a mat and an hour of quiet, which is probably why a plan that falls apart at eight in the evening never appears to trouble her at all.

Put a boat anywhere in the conversation and she will not let it go quietly; Michelle is the other one on the board who sails, and the two of them have opinions. Bring her a question about light or lenses and an hour will disappear pleasantly. Her favourite booking is the one that opens with dinner and closes with a walk along a canal at the hour when the city finally goes quiet.

Land at seven, message at eight, sit down at nine. Cindy is built for the evening that has to be assembled out of whatever is left of you, and she does not need you to be impressive about any of it. She will suggest somewhere in De Pijp with six things on the menu and a proper bar, a few streets from her own front door, and she will carry the early talking while the coffee catches up with you.

Ask about the camera and an hour disappears into light and lenses and the building she shot in the rain last week. Then a slow loop along the water at the hour the city finally lets go, which is the part she likes best and the part guests think about again from an airport three days later.