Morrowind, blast from the past, yeah Options

[unitself]

Have any of you played and/or finished Morrowind?
I bought it years ago, never got very far, got frustrated and put it away. Well, I took it out over the weekend and made a new character and started over. I am only a few hours into it so I have only completed a few Fighter's Guild quests. I am on "Find me a Code Book" quest for them right now.
Basically, does anyone have any pointers?
1) Is there a good way to spend money on weapons and armour? Does a weapon type have an advantage over another?
2) Is there a way that I can find out what herbs and animal parts do what? For example - What is Rat Meat useful for or what does Moon Sugar do? And how does my character find out?
3) Is it better do join a guild and do all of their quests, then join another guild and then do all of thier quests, repeat, repeat... or roam around and pick up quests along my travels? I am curious because during my last game, I FREQUENTLY got caught by much stronger opponents when I just roamed the roads.

Anyways... any tips?

[Crushinator]

Hey, i just did that quest The Khajjit you are looking for is in the sewer of St. Olms. If you're getting killed in there... I dunno what I can say :( The hardest enemy down there is like...a rat or a slaughterfish :(

But the cat is just standing at one of the dead ends of the sewer, if you just walk along the catwalks at the edge of the canals, you'll see her eventually.