A couple swim questions I haven't seen

O.K. I am new to this, my first tri (sprint with pool swim) is 10/11 and I have been training for 11 weeks. I really enjoy the challenge of the training and am sure I will enjoy my first race as I should be well prepared and a solid MOPer, which is great with me.  After 11 weeks I am finally getting comfortable with the swim, so this morning in the pool while I am doing laps I am thinking next year I want to do an oly which will have an open water swim, so maybe I should start working sighting into my stroke. Any thoughts on that. Do you practice sighting in the pool to make it part of your regular stroke? Then I think I sure do get a lot of pool water in my mouth (breathe out through mouth and on breath) and probable consume some of it. Which is fine with pool water, but what about salt water, I cannot imagine that is good. I would probably get less  water in my mouth if I breathed out through my nose but it is not as natural for me to do that. Any thoughts?