This was my third time on the Canary Islands, second time on the island of
Tenerife. I really love the 17º – 24º C (63º – 75º F) weather every day of the
year is pretty amazing. If the terrain weren't so taxing – sooo hilly!! – I
might consider moving there. I had been winking at JS Day Canarias over Twitter
("twinking"?) for several years, and I finally got to meet the organizers at
[React Alicante](https://reactalicante.es) last year, so I was delighted to be
invited this year.

Ever since I saw
[David K. 🎹's talk from React Rally 2019](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpNmPKjPSFQ),
I've been curious about model-based testing. As he is want to do, his demo was a
little, let's say, "set in the future", so it took a few years for Reality to
catch up, but last year at the
[first ever Remix Conf](https://erikras.com/blog/remixconf-2022), I learned more
about [Stately](https://stately.ai)'s
[`@xstate/test`](https://xstate.js.org/docs/packages/xstate-test/) from
[Matt Pocock](https://twitter.com/mattpocockuk), who was working on the alpha
docs at the time.

This was the first year where I submitted talks before actually having any
content behind the proposals, so when I had two _different_ talks accepted
back-to-back in the same week of May, it was a little stressful. By March, I had
actually built the project that confirmed that `@xstate/test` was a way to build
tests. My friendship from Croatia the previous year with
[Debbie O'Brien](https://debbie.codes) made [Playwright](https://playwright.dev)
the obvious choice for my demo.

## Talk

Sadly, this talk was not recorded...or if it was, the video was never published.
The last video on their YouTube channel is
[the promo for the event](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VHUmy-6x-g).

## Food

The day before the conference began, I went on a little excursion with my
friends from [Lemon Code](https://lemoncode.net) to experience the most
authentic food on the islands, namely those provided by a
[_guachinche_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guachinche). Five of us piled into
a small rental car, and we did a bit of tourism on our way to the _guachinche_,
including stopping at a town where I had been before when I traveled to the
island for the first time with my family two years earlier. We ended up at
Guachinche Los Gomez. There was no menu to order from. The sexagenarian waiter
came to our table and read out a list of things they had, including such Canary
staples as _ropa vieja_ and _queso asado_. We said, "Yeah, some of all that."
Then we began to order the main course, one person asking for the _solomillo_,
but the waiter stopped us, warning that it might be too much food and we should
wait to order additional dishes until we'd had our appetizers. We acquiesed.


<img
 src="/images/guachinche-ropa-vieja-queso-asado.jpg"
 alt="Ropa Vieja and Queso Asado"
 width={3024}
 height={4032}
/>

<caption>
 Ropa Vieja and Queso Asado
</caption>


Afterwards, we actually did want to try the meat, so we ordered one _solomillo_.
In Spanish, the word "_solomillo_" is used for both beef sirloin steak and pork
tenderloin, the beef usually being way more expensive. This meat was _so_ tasty
and juicy, we were genuinely unclear as to whether we were eating beef or pork.
We confirmed with the waiter that it was pork, and someone at the table
exclaimed, "_¡Menudo cerdo, tío!_" ("Man, what a pig!")


<img
 src="/images/guachinche-solomillo.jpg"
 alt="Pork Tenderloin"
 width={3024}
 height={4032}
/>

<caption>
 Solomillo de Cerdo (Pork Tenderloin)
</caption>


Rather than present us with a dessert menu, the waiter just brought us three of
their homemade desserts.

When we couldn't eat or drink any more (we'd had 6 liters of local red wine), we
went to pay. There had never been any mention of prices, of course (no menus
🙄). When the waiter told us 66€, our reaction was, "That's actually not a bad
price for what we ate!", assuming it was 66€ _each_. I mean, just the wine
should cost that much! But when he clarified that it was 66€ _in total_, we were
astonished!

I've placed a digital pin on the map, so I can find that place every time I go
back to Tenerife. Wow!

Testing

Posted in Testing