New Player on Sylph

I just downloaded the free 14 day trial a couple days ago, and I'm a little over 8 hours into FFXI now. The game seems fun, but the world is so vast that the experience is somewhat overwhelming, and I'm not entirely sure what I should be doing. Anyone have some advice for a newbie? :D

My character is a male Hume named Leafe, and I'm playing on the Sylph server. I decided to start in Windurst since it seemed like the most "nature-y" of the three locations, and I'm a Monk for the time being. After exploring the surrounding areas I managed to complete my first quest, and now I'm on a second one where I have to charge mana orbs for the Cardians, or something like that lol.

One thing I'm confused about is how the party and linkshell systems work. I've essentially been going solo so far (except for the time a nice white mage decided to heal me!), but I'm not sure if this is the right approach.

The crafting/synthesis aspect of the game is really confusing to me as well, and I don't know if I'm approaching it the wrong way or if it's something I should even be bothering with at this point.

So far I really am enjoying myself though, and if things keep up I'll probably decide to purchase the full version at the end of the trial period. The price seems reasonable for what's being offered, and I'm assuming that if it came down to it I could cancel the subscription for a few months and then pick back up where I left off once I was in a better position to continue playing.