To be fair US states are like that, too.

with far less cultural differences.

Yes, the dining experience in California and New York is just so, so different. One waiter might call it pop, the other soda, it's like being on a different planet!

It's wild the extents to which Americans overestimate the cultural differences between their states and literal entire countries with actual differences. Scandinavia and the Mediterranean are quite different, Americans speaking in a different accent and maybe being slightly friendlier or not is nothing.