For a Buda resident, Pest is a place you go to work, and then hightail it out of before dark. Buda is old, proud, quiet and a bit dotty, like an old aunt you only visit on weekends. It owns a poodle. It never puts its rubbish on the street. It goes to bed early.
People tend to stick to their own side of the river when going out casually.
Buda's hills provide a fresher atmosphere in the dusty hot summers, so the upper classes reside there - especially in posh R zsadomb. Working-class families prefer shady but flat Zugl in Pest. Even though there is a large university complex in south Buda, students socialise in Pest, where almost all concert venues and late-night bars are located. Without that reminder, the V r appears to be nothing but one big tourist attraction - and certainly no visit to Budapest is complete without at least one afternoon up here. But the feeling that nothing here is really real is an accurate one.