By Kevin Kruger · December 17, 2008 · 5 PM

I could not wait to leave Bulgaria and get back to Las Vegas. I left Sofia and traveled through Frankfurt, Chicago and then Las Vegas.

My girlfriend, Shania, picked me up at the airport and we went straight to Jack-In-The-Box. I had been craving an Oreo shake. Hadn’t had one for a while.

Then I went to the house I bought over the summer, near South Point, and lay on the couch to watch TV. It had been a long time since I could understand the TV. I didn’t do anything for a day and a half.

I had been sitting around in Sofia talking to the team translator. This might sound lame, but he had given me the same answer for the last time. I wasn’t in a mood to hear it. I don’t know why.

But it was the last time I was going to hear it.

I was in a hotel for almost three weeks when I got there, with no TV and no Internet. All I had was my phone to talk with people back here. No car to get around.

I told them to be honest. If it’s going to be two weeks to get me into a place, just tell me. They were waiting for a car from a dealership. Fine. I understand that.

They went the other direction. That it’s “this” or “that.” One day, I was not in a great mood. It pushed me over the edge, really.

At some point, you have to put your foot down and say, This is what I’m going to do. You can’t keep getting pushed around forever.

I was there a month. I played another team in Sofia and three homes games for Lukoil Academic.

We played a game in Moscow, but I didn’t really get to see Moscow. That was pretty unfortunate. I was looking forward to getting around and seeing some of that history.

We played Dynamo Moscow, arguably the best team in Europe. They have six or seven guys who played in the NBA, and three guys who snubbed the NBA because of the money.

They’re a very good team. They put a hurt on us early and we never recovered.

Things had been getting better. I realized there was a little homesickness. Get through it and you’ll be fine. I’ve moved plenty of times to know you’ll miss home.

Every day it gets better, but hey kind of pushed me and pushed me.

I don’t want to badmouth the team, but there were things written in my contract and promised to me.

Finally, I broke. I don’t want to go into details of the contract. They didn’t fulfill their part. I wasn’t happy with it. It just became one of those points where you can say you’re going to do it, that you’ll leave.

But they don’t care or trust that you will.

They pushed me enough to where it made it difficult to live there. I figure, if that’s how it would be, I’m better off coming back to the States and figuring out what to do next.

Nobody really gets paid on time in Europe, from what I’ve heard. I’m not an expert. But the rumor is nobody gets paid on the day their contract says they will. You get paid, but it’s really late.

Some say they do it to see if you’ll pan out. Some say it’s because of money issues. Rumors are flying around the team about money issues.

A lot of things are promised.

Two days after I got back to Sofia, from Moscow, I talked with the team. I told them it was personal reasons why I needed to get back. It was best for me. They respected that. I told them I was leaving.

Not everybody does that. But they weren’t happy.

It was a good experience. Sofia’s not a bad played. It was just something that wasn’t for me.

The hardest thing to get used to was the streets. They’re all one lane, except for main roads. And there was two-way traffic on those one-lane streets.

It was a little nervous riding in the cars, others coming at you four or five inches from you. It was nerve-racking to pass people.

Here in America, we like our space.

I didn’t go out much. But I did have dessert almost every meal. They had chocolate and ice cream crepes. I fell in love with that. And they had a lot of chicken and rice, and soup.

It was a long day coming back, but I was excited to be back.

I hope to be released from my contract. It’s honored all over the world. I hope we can work something out soon. I want to get back to the D-League.

I think I’ve done a lot of growing up since my season ended in the D-League in Utah, and by being in Orlando, and with Milwaukee in the summer and now Bulgaria.

Hopefully I can get back into the D-League, in Utah or Reno.

If something overseas came along, a great offer, I’d definitely entertain that. I didn’t leave Bulgaria because I was homesick. I just couldn’t take it anymore.

There were a number of things that just piled up.

It definitely opened my eyes, how much it’s a business. It’s not just about putting on your shoes and having fun anymore.

Which is fine. I understand that. I just hope people understand that I have to see it that way, too. It’s not just a business for people who run the teams and coach, it’s also a business for the guys playing.

I learned that when I was a freshman I college. My dad was fired from the Atlanta Hawks. It kind of made me understand the business. I know he’s a great coach.

And I know if he had time and the final say on things, he would be successful. He has been everywhere else he’s been.

But every lesson is a different one. They’re not all the same. Just because you go through it once doesn’t mean you’ll feel different next time.

I still have the same feeling in my gut, right now, of nervousness and anxiety of what I’m doing next, like I did after Orlando last year and after Milwaukee this year.

You can never really be prepared for it, no matter what it is.