Centrum, as it sleeps
Centrum's hotels fall into three broad kinds, and oil is at home in each of them. The large properties around Centraal Station and along the Damrak have modern bathrooms and wide beds, and their lobbies stay busy enough at every hour that a woman in a good coat with a shoulder bag passes as one more late arrival. The canal-house hotels on the Herengracht and Keizersgracht offer tall windows, heavy curtains and old floors that creak, which matters far less for oil than for livelier formats, because the whole session is slow and almost silent. Then come the small boutique rooms tucked behind the Negen Straatjes, where space is tight and the shower is a glass cubicle in the corner. Oil asks nothing of a room that such a cubicle cannot give: she spreads two of her own towels across the bed, keeps the bottle warm in a basin of hot water, and needs the shower for a few minutes at the very end. If your window faces a lively street near the Nieuwmarkt, pull the curtain before she arrives, since the terraces and the late trams carry on well past midnight.