HeyTomaz
The advice above is correct do your research, here, and other online sites such as PADI.com, Sportdiver.com it is a magazine but it may be helpful, (there are tons of others go to google type in SCUBA diving you'll find lots of info) talk to divers, and the people at your LDS you can get a lot of good advice, (and some crappy advice too so be carefull and use common sense).
But to answer your other Q "is SCUBA different than normal diving?" I don't know what you mean by "normal diving" but if you mean freediving yes (freediving is when you dive down as deep and as long as you can without the aid of any breathing apparatus ie tank filled w/air, you dive only with what you can hold in your lungs) in freediving you do not use any equipement besides you mask, fins and a wetsuit (and maybe a sled to get you down faster) but in SCUBA you use lots and lots of toys (tanks for air, BCD= boyancy compesator device to keep you afloat or off the bottom, Regulators to deliever the air from the tank to you mouth, dive computers, the list goes on and on)
OR Snorkeling may be what you meant by "normal diving" SCUBA is similar but snorkleing is pretty much limited to swimming at the surface and as far as you can dive down on a single breath. Snorkeling is like the little brother to SCUBA it uses some of the same gear mask, fins, snorkel, wetsuit but that is about it. SCUBA requires training and certification Snorkeling requires the above equipment and a body of water to swim around in.
Best suggestion I can give and others have said already is to search this site (don't limit your searches to recent threads only look at past posts) and post you Q's you'll get alot of input.
Good luck
WAc
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