Importing a pictures folder and subfolders

Hello,

I'm new to Mac and have a question regarding importing pictures into iPhoto on my new macbook pro.

I have a pictures folder on my external drive where all the pictures are saved into subfolders by event "Christmas 2011" "Engagement Pics" etc. So when I go to import these pictures in, these are my questions:

1) Should I import in the entire pictures folder and will the sub folders be turned into albums? Or should I create albums and add the corresponding folder(s)/files that match up with that album?

2) Should I import in directly from the external drive? Or do I need to move the pictures to my mac hdd then import from there? I heard that the iPhoto has it's own folder/structure not based off where your images import from, so in my mind this would be just taking up extra space having them on the hard drive and then imported to another folder through iPhoto.

3) Down the road I'm looking at getting Aperature and I heard that the ablums/photos in iPhoto will carry over to the Aperature program and you will not have to reimport them again and go through making albums etc, is this correct?

Thanks again for your help. I'm trying ot do it right the first time to save some headache down the road.

-Chris