Nora, spirited company in Amsterdam Centrum

"Champagne is not a celebration drink, it is a Tuesday drink, and the celebration comes later." Nora has been saying some version of that for years and has yet to be talked out of it. She orders it without ceremony, drinks it without solemnity, and somehow makes an ordinary hotel bar feel like the beginning of something.

She is 26, 166 centimetres, athletic, with long honey blonde hair and hazel eyes, and a sun-kissed resort glamour that she wears in the middle of a grey Amsterdam January without appearing to notice the contradiction. Spirited is the word that fits best. She is adventurous in small practical ways, the first to suggest the place nobody has heard of, and warm enough that the suggestion never feels like a test.

Fashion design is her working obsession, sketched constantly and discussed happily, and Tina is the one she talks construction and fabric with. Flower markets are the other habit, an early morning walk along the Singel that she recommends to every traveller with a free hour and a camera. She will meet you there if the timing works, which is not something most people think to ask for and everybody enjoys when they do.

Amsterdam Centrum is her district, which puts almost every hotel in the old city within a few minutes of her front door. Her English comes at speed. Nora suits the evening that is actually going somewhere, a dinner and then a bar and then a walk along the water, rather than the one that stays in a single chair all night. She starts from €180 per hour and tends to be booked early on weekends, so a little notice helps if your dates are fixed.

Champagne opens the evening, and Nora does not wait for an occasion to justify it. A terrace in the old city, the sun going down behind the gables, and the ordering done before the menus have even arrived.

Dinner should have noise in it and a decent list, and she will propose the place nobody has recommended to you rather than the one with the reputation. Fashion design runs quietly in the background all evening, so expect a commentary on the room, the chairs and what the table beside you is wearing. Afterwards, a walk along the water. If a morning is free, meet her at the flower market on the Singel instead of at the hotel, which hardly anybody thinks to ask for and everybody enjoys.