Impressions of Istanbul

After 7 days here, we've made a few observations and have had a few interesting experiences.
1. The mosques play the call to prayer music 3 times a day (at least) BUT everything is closed on Sundays. Can't figure out which religion/culture is actually at large.
2. We were told we "WALK like Americans" - what do Americans walk like?? And no, we did not have our pants sagged nor were we walking with a swagger. We were approached by a man in a square who didn't seem to be selling anything - he seemed to genuinely be curious if he had tagged us correctly as Americans. We didn't find out his motive since we pretended like we didn't understand English like we usually do when called American.
3. That being said, we realized that we definitely stand out. Something we didn't realize until we were here is that a trend in the states is that rain and down jackets are super bright colors - like my aqua blue and Scott's bright red jackets. EVERYONE here - other tourists and locals alike - wear black jackets exclusively. Plus side, we can find each other very easily in a crowd.
4. Scott has forgotten how to listen. To anything....or maybe just his wife's voice.
5. We have no concept of history. Our country was founded in 1776. The center of the Roman Empire - renamed Constantinople - was founded in 332 ad or something like that. The Ottoman Empire took over around 1200-1400. And that's just one of two major empire with capitals here - there was plenty of history before that. There are records of people existing in this area as long ago as 8,000 BC. I can't even wrap my head around that!
6. This sounds stupid because of course we learned about it in school but also eye opening to see reminents cultures like Greek, roman, ancient orient and ottoman all in the same area.
7. This dude Sinan was very busy in his lifetime designing every major Mosque, tomb and fountains in this city and surrounding areas as well converting major churches to major mosques - like Hagia Sofia/Aya Sofya.
8. Istanbul is amazing and many historic sites have been restored and are very accessible to tourists. That being said, the city is surprisingly run down in areas and some former buildings have just collapsed. Many more that look like they are about to. Many other sites - churches/mosques/important looking buildings of the past - not renovated some being used as cheap shops and such. That being said there are many obvious areas of reconstruction and active renovation so I'm sure it's just a matter of time before it's beautiful at every turn. It's an old and big city so I shouldn't be surprised but it's just different from places we've been before which are either entirely "pretty" or entirely "run down".
9. The stray dogs here don't beg and actually look pretty healthy. They are the chill-est strays I've ever seen. Apparently they tag them to keep track of them so they much feed and take care of them somewhat too.
10. The subway system is the 3rd oldest in the world after London and New York. There is an underground vehicular that is even older - one of the first underground public transportations in the world.

I'm sure I'll think of things I meant to add and forgot but here's a good start!