British aluminum foil
It depends which foil and what you are doing... if you are using BacoFoil non-stick the shiny side needs to touch the food, as this is the side with the non-stickyness on. the rest of the foil, it doesn't really matter - just remember that the shiny side will reflect more heat, so the food will cook quicker!
Yes. Aluminium is a metal and a very malleable (can be hammered into sheets) metal as well. To prove this, 'tin' foil used to wrap food for cooking (like 'Bacofoil') is actually made from aluminum and not tin. The most malleable metal is gold - it can be hammered into thin 'gold leaf' sheets that can be so thin that they are just a few atoms thick. Aluminium is not as malleable as this, but it can easily be made into foil.